Artist of the Week: Rene Magritte
"My painting is 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."- René
Magritte
The
Human Condition series, painted between 1933 and 1935. "The Human
Condition" ("La condition humaine") refers to a number of works, of
which the two most famous are both oil on canvas paintings. There are
also a number of drawings of the same name.
The 1960s brought a great increase in public awareness of Magritte's
work. One of the means by which his imagery became familiar to a wider
public was through reproduction on rock album covers including, the
1969 album Beck-Ola by the Jeff Beck group, Jackson Browne's 1974
album, Late for the Sky, and the Firesign Theatre's album Just
Folks . . . A Firesign Chat. Styx adapted Magritte's Carte Blanche
for the cover of their 1977 album The Grand Illusion, while the
cover of John Foxx's 2001 The Pleasures of Electricity, was
based on Magritte's painting Le Principe du Plaisir. Jethro Tull
mentions Magritte on a 1976 album and Paul Simon's song "Rene And
Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War" appears on the 1983
album Hearts and Bones.
Paul McCartney, a
life-long fan of Magritte, owns many of his paintings, and claims that a
Magritte painting inspired him to use the name Apple for the
Beatles' media corporation.
Magritte is also the subject and title of a John Cale song on the 2003
album HoboSapiens.
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