I’ll be mixing things up a little bit with this next post about René Magritte (that is not a post about René Magritte, btw). The art scene is so varied and vast in Brussels, that I simply couldn’t contain it to one outing in this blog; there is also so much Magritte to behold that Brussels had to divvy the collection up between two locations in the capital. For the first time, I’ll be devoting a single post to a single artist and his remarkable œuvre that I had the privilege of being exposed to while in Brussels.
Musée Magritte
I stumbled upon the Musée Magritte (Magritte Museum) purely by accident. There are several modern/contemporary art institutions in Brussels and I hadn’t planned on budgeting any time to visit the Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique/Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België (Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Belgium), a complex of three museums that house Belgium’s largest collection of classical art. With entry to each museum at 8€ a pop, I didn’t have the time, interest or money to squeeze them in.
And then two things happened: I purchased a Brussels Card, which gave me unlimited access to all public transportation, as well as free entry to dozens of museums and attractions, and I found myself trapped in a torrential downpour on my first morning in Brussels near the museum complex. The Royal Museums were on the card’s list and I figured I could kill some time while I waited out the storm. I breezed through the first museum, Musée Old Masters (Old Masters Museum), which as the name would suggest, covers 400 years of Belgian painting from the 15th-18th Centuries. Musée fin-de-siècle (Fin-de-siècle Museum) was a marked improvement and worth visiting in its own right. The museum covers the period from 1868-1914, and not only features the visual arts, but exhibitions on architecture, opera and fashion as well.
The true surprise for me was the third museum, Musée Magritte. The Hôtel Altenloh was purchased in 2009 by the Royal Museums and converted into an exhibition space for one of Belgium’s most celebrated painters: René Magritte. Famous for his surrealist visions, Magritte’s evocative works instantly reverberated inside me. René was survived by his wife, Georgette, who upon her own death, bequeathed much of her personal collection to the museum. Musée Magritte has over 230 of the artist’s pieces on display (the largest collection in the world), although some of his most famous works are scattered elsewhere around the globe.
Magritte was born in 1898 in Lessines, a city in French-speaking Wallonia, the southern half of Belgium. René’s mother committed suicide when he was 13 by drowning herself in a river. Her teenage son was present when local authorities hoisted his mother’s body from the water, her clothing having billowed up to cover her face. This image of his shrouded mother had a profound impact on the young Magritte and would later show up in his work.
Magritte began painting at age 12 and five years later he gained admittance to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. René was not a very successful student. He dabbled in Impressionism, Cubism, Futurism- but both the artist and the artwork were uninspired. In 1922, Magritte married Georgette and shortly thereafter he was introduced to Giorgio de Chirico’s “Le chant d’amour” (Love Song) that forever changed his life. Chirico was an Italian painter whose works acted as a precursor to the surrealist movement that officially would be founded several years later in 1924. Upon viewing “Le chant d’amour,” Magritte began weeping and later recalled that, “my eyes saw thought for the first time.” (Musée Magritte has a wonderful assortment of quotes from the artist adorning its walls.)
In 1927, Magritte held his first solo show in Brussels and the critical reception was cool at best. Despite this being Magritte’s artistic debut, several of his hallmark themes were already in place, in particular his devotion to exploring the mysteries of our world. One trademark was to place ordinary objects in unusual and unexpected contexts. When asked about this process, Magritte responded, “It is a union that suggests the general mystery of the world. Art for me is not an end in itself, but a means of evoking that mystery.”
I like that there are no easy answers with Magritte’s works. In fact, the “meaning” of a piece like “L’homme du large,” is completely irrelevant, and yet it still contains an intangible message. I’ve discussed enough modern art with my father after he’s digested one of my posts (thanks for the loyal readership, Dad!), that I know he’ll ask, “But what does it mean? What is Magritte trying to say?” Magritte has an answer for that too: [my paintings] are visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, ‘What does that mean?’ It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either; it is unknowable.
Not completely impervious to the bad reviews, René and Georgette left Brussels for Paris where Magritte established lifelong friendships with the growing community of surrealists. During his three years in Paris, Magritte published essays on the arbitrary relationship between words and their meanings. He began painting and mislabeling common objects to highlight this arbitrary nature in a series of “word paintings.”
In 1929, Magritte painted one of his most celebrated works, “La Trahison des images,” also known as, “Ceci n‘est pas une pipe.” (The original 1929 painting is on display at an art museum in Los Angeles, but Musée Magritte is in possession of the sequel “Ceci continue de ne pas être une pipe,” from 1952.) The painting is simple: Magritte drew a pipe on a page and captioned it with, “This is not a pipe.” “Of course it is a pipe,” critics derided, but Magritte suggested one of them attempt to stuff it with tobacco and see how much of a pipe it actually is! Magritte is right. It’s not a pipe, but rather a representation of a pipe. He wanted to both expand and confine the boundaries by which linguistics and art are able to integrate with one another. The piece became so popular that Magritte developed it into a series of “This is not a ____ .”
The artist also played with the inverse of “Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” with “Ceci est un moreceau de fromage,” (This IS a piece of cheese.) The above is a painting (actually, the above is a photo of a painting) that Magritte created from one of his exhibitions after his return to Brussels. Magritte purchased an actual cake stand with glass cover and then placed his paintings under the glass in a gallery. All the critics who claimed that the pipe was actually a pipe, now had to confess that the piece of cheese, which was now correctly-titled, was not actually a piece of cheese! The wit of Magritte truly tickled me; never have I laughed so much when visiting an art museum.
Magritte returned to Brussels in 1930 and would never call another city home until his death in 1967. “Le Retour” ushered in a theme that would fascinate the artist for the rest of his career: placing elements of both day and night in the same frame. We also see Magritte continue to play with “cut out” figures- remember, the dove is not a dove, but just a representation of a dove, allowing Magritte to fashion the bird however he sees fit. The dove flies through the night, but is illuminated with sun-soaked clouds. Don’t mistake Le Retour for carrying religious undertones, though. Magritte was a life-long agnostic.
Magritte faced some blowback from his cadre of surrealists during World War II when he did not flee the capital as the Nazis approached. Many of his colleagues escaped to London where they worked in exile; Magritte decided to stay, causing some to accuse him of tacitly supporting Nazi Germany’s conquest of Europe. Magritte was anti-fascist (he was a card-carrying communist) and never endorsed Hitler, but the damage was done and he was forced to start painting reproductions of Rembrandts and Da Vincis as his stock plummeted. He even got caught up in a scheme with his brother who started printing counterfeit money for which Magritte would paint in the details.
Despite the hits Magritte took to his reputation and finances, he still produced some original works during the wartime occupation. Above, the forest is both aflame with fall foliage and the bombing of the Belgian countryside by German troops. The trees themselves are depicted as giant leaves; Magritte always keeps you guessing what is literal and what is metaphorical, what is symbolism and allegory and what is plainly being stated. Remember, it’s all about the mystery and the emotions the painting causes to brew inside of you. Don’t overthink it.
Magritte’s paintings often feel like optical illusions. At first glance the rock appears to be floating above the sleeper in the wooden box, but upon closer inspection, the dreamer is in the foreground the rock is resting in the background. Light also comes from surprising and often contradictory places in each scene. The light is clearly shining brightly down on and into the wooden box. The shadow of the box is cast slightly to the right, but the shadow inside the box is cast to the left. The rock’s shadow is cast sharply to the right and the entire horizon is brightly lit. Once again: the mysteries of life! Do not contradictory things exist in our world all the time? Paradoxes abound in politics, economics and social constructs. This is Magritte illuminating those contradictions without the need for explanation or solution.
Another of Magritte’s recurring themes is his love of and concern for the future of the natural world. He explored this near the end of World War II’s destruction with “Les rencontres naturelles,” in which two people (who happen to have cannons for heads), are exploring what is left of nature, perhaps even in a museum setting. There is but one leaf and a pair of windows giving glimpses of the sky. Despite their lack of facial features, the thoughts of the cannon-people couldn’t be clearer. They are puzzled and bemused by these remnants of the natural world, peering at the leaf as if it were a long-lost extinct animal. The nature in the painting is as surreal to the figures as the figures are to us; a sort of meta-surrealism, if you will.
One of Magritte’s most well-known series of paintings is that of Shéhérazade. According to legend, Shéhérazade was part of a harem of virgins belonging to a sultan in Arabia. Every night, the sultan selected a virgin to sleep with and in the morning, he killed her. One night Shéhérazade was chosen to spend the night with the sultan. In an effort to save herself, she began recounting a fantastic tale, only to reach a cliffhanger at daybreak. Rather than kill her, the sultan invited her back to hear the rest of the story the following evening. She delayed her execution for 1001 nights, by which point the sultan had fallen in love with her and married her.
In Magritte’s paintings, we only are ever privy to Shéhérazade’s eyes and lips as they hover in space, outlined by a twisty string of pearls. Her presence is both beautiful and unsettling. The background is a rather mundane landscape; any bowl of fruit could sit atop this table and the scene would be transformed into a classic still life. This is a key component of surrealism: everyday life being invaded by the weird and bizarre. Shéhérazade becomes Magritte’s ultimate mystery figure- she has 1001 stories to tell and the viewer can imagine what each and every one is.
This is one of 17 pieces titled “L’Empire des lumières” that Magritte painted between the 1940s and 1960s; this particular entry on display at Musée Magritte dates from 1954. Once again, we see Magritte including both a day and night scene on the same canvas. The street light barely illuminates the front of the house, while the sun is blindingly bright above. Even more so than Shéhérazade, the setting is incredibly pedestrian. The interest does not come from the subject matter itself, but the way that it is presented. The house is an ordinary house until we realize it is cloaked in darkness on a sunny morning.
Magritte was very attracted to capturing all four of the natural elements (earth, air, water and fire) in a single painting. Here we have an easel on the beach that at first glance merely holds an empty frame. Or did the artist so perfectly capture the sea that even the breaks in the waves match up with the canvas? And what of the reflection of the fire that the artist also had the foresight to capture in his painting on the beach. Who is the fair captive? The elements that were captured in the painting on the easel or the painting that Magritte painted of the painting? Maybe I just feel in sync with Magritte, because after mystery upon mystery, it all makes sense to me even if I’ll be damned if I can explain it to anyone else!
By the early 1960s, Magritte’s popularity had grown. He had become financially secure after holding exhibitions all over the world. My father is always quizzing me with trivia he heard on Jeopardy and now it’s my time to turn the tables on him. Did you know that The Beatles, and in particular Paul McCartney, were inspired by Magritte, even going so far to name their media company, Apple Corps Limited, after Magritte’s painting, “Le Jeu de Mourre?” (The painting, whose title translates to “The Game of Dying,” features a green apple with the words, “Au revoir” written underneath.) Many other Magritte paintings have gone on to become album or book covers, inspiring other artists around the world.
Magritte worked right up until his death in 1967. Rather humorously, his attention had turned to painting and creating coffins in the later stages of his career. “Madame Racamier” is a famous painting by the French artist David, whose works take up much wall space in The Louvre. Magritte used David’s painting to recreate the sofa, stand and nearby table with pinpoint accuracy, but instead of placing the seated figure of Madame Racamier on the sofa, Magritte replaced her with an erect coffin angled at nearly 90 degrees. David immortalized Racamier on the sofa; it is the last known painting we have of the socialite. This was her “death” in art. It is her memorial, frozen in time. Magritte entombed her, just as David did, only in a surrealist fashion. Sometimes Magritte’s coffins are posed in conversation (see above) or sharing a morning coffee on a balcony.
Magritte succumbed to pancreatic cancer on August 15, 1967; he is buried in his beloved Brussels. Before Belgium adopted the Euro, Magritte appeared on the 500 Francs banknote and a street in the capital has been renamed “Ceci n’est pas une rue” in his honor.
Musée René Magritte
Not to be confused with Musée Margritte, Musée René Magritte is located in the Northwest suburb of Jette in the house René and Georgette resided in from 1930 until 1954. They only rented out the first floor apartment (as well as the attic), but now all three floors, as well as the backyard studio, belong to the museum. To reach the museum, take Tram 51 or 19 to Cimetière de Jette/Kerkhof van Jette and it’s only a five minute walk from there. (Remember, trams, buses and the metro are all included in the Brussels Card!).
The first floor has been recreated to look as it appeared when the Magritte lived and worked there. On Saturday nights, a weekly meeting of Belgian surrealists was held in the living room. Members in his circle would bring essays, art, poetry and critical reviews for points of discussion and debate. René used one room in the apartment as a studio for his paintings. A second studio in the backyard was used to print movie posters and other commercial assignments Magritte had to accept to pay the bills. Although some of this film festival posters are held in high regard today, Magritte looked down on this work at the time and viewed it only as a necessity for survival.
The second and third floors are filled with oddities and rarities, including a blue rug Magritte created for an exhibition and his first painting from age 12. Musée René Magritte doesn’t try to be big or splashy. It rather aims to provide an intimate insight into Magritte’s psyche and personal life, walking you through his relationships with Georgette and other surrealist comrades like André Breton, who co-founded the movement with his Surrealist Manifesto in 1924. The museum is designed for those whom the Musée Magritte did not quench their thirst for the artist’s thoughts and ideas. Look at me: I upended my entire carefully organized itinerary to journey to the suburbs in the hopes of soaking up every last drop of Magritte’s spirit I could find. A thought that really hit home for me was that, unlike Magritte’s pipe, I wasn’t experiencing a representation of my life, but I was indeed living my actual life. This is not a facsimile of reality. Through travel, I was embracing the mysteries of the world and somehow the more I traveled, the more the mysteries made sense, while simultaneously new characters and plot twists caused the mystery to grow and evolve. Like Shéhérazade, this blog allows you access to my eyes and voice as I relay my 1001 stories through pictures and words, hoping you’ll return to read the next one. To paraphrase Magritte, this blog is not an end in itself, but a means of evoking a curiosity and love for travel in others (and myself).
