Magritte
Fundamental Paintings to Understand the History of Painting
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The Treachery of Images (1928/1929). Magritte.
Oil on canvas. 60 cm x 81 cm.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. United States.
When we get used to things so much, and they no longer surprise us, art is there to shake us. Art is a stimulus to look differently. To look with the naivety of a child who sees things for the first time. It gives us a whole new universe to enjoy and also teaches us about the power of the look: if the world is the look we have of it, by changing the way of looking we can modify many things.
With his art, Magritte invites the viewer to no longer take anything for granted, not to trust the external appearance of things to which we are used to.
Magritte is the artist that “trains” the look of the viewer, not to see art but to look around. And in this work in particular, ironically called The Treachery of Images, the artist warns us that we are looking at a pipe, but it is not a pipe that can be smoked.
A painting of a pipe is not a pipe. The image of a thing is not the thing.
But that is not all, the provocation goes deeper, beyond a painting, everything we see it is not what we are seeing. Whether a tree or a person, what we see is not that tree or that person, just images. And that tree or that person is infinitely more complex, richer and more magical that the synthesis that our eyes perceive.
In fact, images do not deceive us; we deceive ourselves when we take something for granted. And therefore we miss a fascinating universe.
Recommended links:
Artistic Movements, Periods and Styles in 5 Points: Surrealism.
The Fundamental Difference Between the Absurd and the Magical Realism.
The Persistence of Memory (1931), Salvador Dalí.
Artistic Movements, Periods and Styles in 5 Points: Abstract Expressionism.
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