Aside from Salvador Dali, the best known Surrealist artist is probably René Magritte. Magritte was born a few years before Dali, and he died much earlier, but his images―coolly off―have never been forgotten. The world has further changed since he last painted, but he still speaks to many.
In some ways, "The Reckless Sleeper" (above) is a pretty straightforward depiction of sleep and dreams. A man lies sleeping in some kind of bunk. Below him is the subconscious. The objects therein are randomly selected, but he will assemble them into the story of his dream tonight.
Well, sort of randomly selected. There's an apple and a bowler hat, both famous components of Magritte's other works. So there's an author's signature here.
1 comment:
I'm most definitely among those still listening to Magritte. 'The Reckless Sleeper' is one I'm less familiar with although its imagery is clearly reminiscent of how our dreams are conceived in our unconscious.
His work is generally more subtle than Dali's. Dali was something of a bombastic showman, an artist praised by promoters who indulged everything he did largely because it was weird. There are contemporary artists whose pieces I don't like much either, also mostly because I see pretension in their works - ie, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. Anyway, I do like Dali's watercolors.
Magritte's 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' is a masterpiece of how he viewed paradox in the world. It's hard to choose favorites among his works as there are so many excellent and intriguing ones. Nevertheless, the ones I return to are those like 'The Human Condition', the one that shows an easel in front of an open window where the image appears interchangeable with the outside. I've often wondered what if there's something else in that meadow other than a tree and more bushes?
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