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Surrealist paintings by Rene Magritte

Surrealist paintings by Rene Magritte

Surrealist paintings by Rene Magritte

Rene Magritte was a Belgian artist, Surrealist painter. He is famous for bizarre images depicted in a realistic manner.
Rene Francois Chislain Magritte was born on November 21, 1890 in Lessines, Belgium. At the age of 12 he began drawing and painting. Rene attended informal art classes in Chatelet. In 1912 Magritte’s mother drowned herself, and the family moved to Charleroi.
At age 15, at the local fair, he met a girl named Georgette Berger. They married in 1922.
From 1916 to 1918 Magritte studied at the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. In 1919, he exhibited his first canvas, Three Women, a Cubistic picture.

His first one-man show, in Brussels in 1927, was a critical failure.
In 1948, Magritte illustrated Lautre´amont’s complete works with 77 drawings.
In 1930 Magritte broke with the Surrealists in a dispute over their dogmatic aims, burned most of his possessions associated with this time and returned to Brussels.
In the 1930s, Magritte met the English collector and philanthropist James Edward, who invited him to live and work in London.
In the 1940s Magritte experimented briefly with Impressionism and a brash Fauve-inspired style.
In the 1950s he worked in the field of monumental painting. The profound and paradoxical painting of Magritte reveals to the viewer a world of fantasy and dreams. The main purpose of the artist was the transmission of thought through the means of plastics.
With his art, the master again and again made it clear that the world is mysterious, unknowable, its highest purpose and meaning are hidden.
In 1956, Magritte was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Prize. And in the late 1950s his art exhibitions blew up the art halls of the United States, and Magritte became a world-class artist.

A good omen

A good omen


Using a simple alphabet of uncomplicated characters, Magritte could turn every picture into a riddle of mysteries.
The artist had a special attitude to the mirrors. He believed that the mysterious world Through the Looking Glass keeps many secrets. “Mirrors have a memory! They are bridges to the parallel world!” – Rene Magritte often repeated, and mirrors often became elements of his compositions.
Magritte liked to combine seemingly incompatible things and objects on one canvas. That’s why his friends called him “the genius of paradoxes”.
Rene Magritte died of cancer on August 15, 1967 in Brussels and left one of his most famous paintings, The Empire of Light, unfinished. He was 68 years old.

Surrealist paintings by Rene Magritte

Advertising poster for cigarettes Belga

Advertising poster for cigarettes Belga

Bath in a glass

Bath in a glass

Beautiful realities

Beautiful realities

Beautiful world

Beautiful world

Betrayal in the picture

Betrayal in the picture

Chorus of the sphinx

Chorus of the sphinx

Cicero

Cicero

Clairvoyance or Catvoyance

Clairvoyance or Catvoyance

Companions of Fear, 1942

Companions of Fear, 1942

Difficult crossing

Difficult crossing

Endless appreciation

Endless appreciation

Fake Mirror

Fake Mirror

Familiar objects

Familiar objects

Forest

Forest

Georgette at the piano

Georgette at the piano

Georgette Magritte, 1934

Georgette Magritte, 1934

Georgette

Georgette

Glass key

Glass key

Golconda, 1953

Golconda, 1953

Great War

Great War

Handsome prince

Handsome prince

Happy Hand

Happy Hand

Hegel's Holiday

Hegel’s Holiday

Human destiny

Human destiny

Insight

Insight

Large family

Large family

Listening room, 1952

Listening room, 1952

Love perspective

Love perspective

Lovers II, 1928

Lovers II, 1928

Lovers

Lovers

Magritte with Georgette

Magritte with Georgette

Man in a Bowler Hat

Man in a Bowler Hat

Meditation, 1936

Meditation, 1936

Memoirs of the Holy, 1960

Memoirs of the Holy, 1960

Memories of the Journey II

Memories of the Journey II

Memories of the Journey III

Memories of the Journey III

Memory of the journey

Memory of the journey

Nostalgia

Nostalgia

Personal things

Personal things

Philosophical lamp, 1936

Philosophical lamp, 1936

Pilgrim

Pilgrim

Ready-made Bouquet

Ready-made Bouquet

Red model, 1935

Red model, 1935

Rene Magritte in front of his painting Pilgrim. 1966

Rene Magritte in front of his painting Pilgrim. 1966

Scheherazade, 1948

Scheherazade, 1948

Scheherazade

Scheherazade

Song of Love

Song of Love

Teacher

Teacher

The Beautiful Captive

The Beautiful Captive

The blow to the heart

The blow to the heart

The invention of life

The invention of life

The Legend of Ages

The Legend of Ages

The pleasure principle, 1937

The pleasure principle, 1937

The Reckless Sleeper, 1927

The Reckless Sleeper, 1927

The Seducer

The Seducer

The Son of Man

The Son of Man

The unfinished picture, 1954

The unfinished picture, 1954

Therapist, 1937

Therapist, 1937

This is not a cat

This is not a cat

This is not a pipe

This is not a pipe

Two Secrets, 1966

Two Secrets, 1966

Waterfall

Waterfall

Wonderland

Wonderland

Autorretrato

Autorretrato

Botella con etiqueta

Botella con etiqueta

Botella pintada

Botella pintada

El encededor

El encededor

El hombre del mar

El hombre del mar

El mutilado

El mutilado

La llamada de las cimas

La llamada de las cimas

La marcha triunfa

La marcha triunfa

La ventana

La ventana

La voz de la sangre

La voz de la sangre

Las afinidades electivas

Las afinidades electivas

L'Avenir des statues. 1932

L’Avenir des statues. 1932

Les Chasseurs de la nuit. 1928

Les Chasseurs de la nuit. 1928

L'Idee fixe. 1928

L’Idee fixe. 1928

Panorama populaire. 1926.

Panorama populaire. 1926.