![La Représentation [Representation]](http://www.nationalgalleries.org/media/15/collection/GMA 3546.jpg)
- Tour
- Do they look like real women to you or not? What is it about them that makes you think this?
- Back to intro
René Magritte
La Représentation [Representation]
1937The fact that female nudes shock, as well as excite viewers, is an essential part of their appeal. Magritte tackles this subject head-on. In creating this unusual work, he may have been making an ironic comment on the entire western artistic ideal of the perfect female nude. Magritte wrote in 1935 that he was "thinking of pictures which represent only a single already existing or imagined object, or part of an object, a woman's breast, for instance". Magritte cut out the painting to the contours of the woman's body and had a special, shaped frame made for it. It emphasises the strange relationship between paintings and the real world.
This was the only time Magritte used a shaped frame for one of his paintings. The painting was originally square, but several months after painting it the artist decided to cut it down and have a new frame specially made. He may have been influenced by a pair of portraits in shaped frames painted by Salvador Dalí the previous year. Magritte wrote that the finished work 'constitutes a rather surprising object, I think.' Magritte was very particular about the titles of his works, and preferred them to be poetic and surprising rather than descriptive.
Magritte was born in Belgium and, apart from a few years spent in Paris in the late 1920s, lived there all his life. Unlike many Surrealists, Magritte did not subscribe to the view that the unconscious could be expressed through chance or 'automatic' techniques. Instead, he planned and executed his paintings with all the deliberation and skill of an academic painter. The results are surprisingly credible images of seemingly illogical scenes. Magritte would undermine logic by tampering with scale and by placing unrelated objects in unexpected settings. A constant theme running through his art is the relationship that exists between the painted image and the visible world, between fiction and reality. Magritte's art blurs the boundaries between the two.
- Glossary (2 terms)
- Open
Automatism, Surrealism
Automatism
A painting or drawing process that aims to suppress rational thought, allowing the subconscious to take control. This spontaneous approach is associated with Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.
Surrealism
A literary and artistic movement founded by the poet André Breton in 1924. Many of the associated artists, such as Max Ernst and Jean Arp, had previously been involved with Dadaism. The movement sought to challenge conventions through the exploration of the subconscious mind, invoking the power of dreams and elements of chance. Cultural hierarchies were challenged by the combination of diverse elements in collages and sculptural assemblages. The movement is also notable for the collaborations between artists and writers evident in the Surrealists' many publications.
- Credits Purchased 1990
- Medium Oil on canvas laid on plywood
- Size 48.80 x 44.50 cm (frame 54.00 x 49.20 cm)
- Do they look like real women to you or not? What is it about them that makes you think this?
- What words can you think of to describe the women depicted in these art works?
- Which Venus do you find the most beautiful - and why?
- How do these art works compare to modern images of beautiful women?
- Who would you say has "goddess status" today, and why?
- Who do you think would have owned these works of art when they were made and where do you think they would have been displayed?
- How does the lack of eye contact with most of these Venuses make you feel when you look at them?
- Why do you think that artists such as Titian were so interested in ancient art and literature?
- Why do you think artists have chosen to portray female nudes so often in the past?
- How do the twentieth-century Venuses compare to the older ones?
- Enlarge
- ? ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2004
