Surrealism (pt. 17)

This 1964 work by René Magritte is among the artist's most indelible images, paving the way for innumerable psychological and philosophical study and artistic imitation (not to mention innumerable parodies).  It's titled Son of Man, and it is, quite simply, a man whose face is covered by a floating apple.  Both the title and the background scenery (a short wall opens out to a broad, oceanic landscape and a cloudy sky behind the man) seem to impart an expansion of ideological context to this image; and yet, the actual scene is so tantalizingly simple, isn't it?  We can almost see the man's face—one of his eyes peeks through—but it's hidden by this random apple that absurdly floats in mid-air for seemingly no other purpose than to frustrate us.  The artist is here most straightforwardly playing with the inherent curiosity of the human brain.  As viewers, we look to this figure's face and yet are turned down by such a small thing.  It's as if we could just reach out and pull away the apple, and then finally be able to see the man's face.  But we can't; and forever the image is painted this way.  We don't care to see the apple; and yet that is, ironically, put before the man.  It's totally absurd, and is intentionally so in order to enact this experiment on the eye's preference and selectiveness of vision.  Our mind chooses to focus on the man and views the apple as secondary—hey, maybe it's supposed to be a simple still life of a floating apple into which an intruding figure has stumbled.  Regardless, we look to the man for subject matter and meaning.  Meditations such as this reflect the Surrealist attention to perceptions of normalcy in society.  By adding just such a little, simple thing as an apple in the right place (or wrong place, I suppose), a formality within the practice of vision is undermined.  In art, a medium of images, we are finally presented with an artist's denial of an image.  This not only goes against the rules of painting technique but it maddens audiences to the point of distraction.  Nonetheless, Magritte makes his point, does he not?  This seemingly simple painting becomes one of the hardest images for us to look at and accept in our study of the history of art, and it has nothing to do with the apple, but rather what the apple conceals.

And yet, after reading the title, aren't we left feeling that maybe the apple does have something to do with the subtle profundity of this image?  The mysteriously floating apple becomes a spiritual symbol of a religious idea, a doctrinal precept lending possible interpretation to the scene.  Is this a statement on original sin?  Does this unqualified man, in his anonymity, take on the identity of Adam because of his relation to the apple?  Or maybe this is a projection of our own human blindness—that the curse of the forbidden fruit stands between ourselves and every other human being when we try to interact with our fellow man.  Inasmuch as floating apples don't exist in the real world (except, I suppose, on the International Space Station), maybe this apple isn't a real object at all but merely a psychological projection of our own subconscious.  Or, conversely, what if the apple is in front of the man's face because that is really all that matters—as if to say that one's individual struggles with sin or temptation are the only relevant incidents in the human experience, and none of us can ever really relate, one human being to another, except within that common context of lineage or "sonship" to Adam?  At any rate, this Surrealist painting displays in extraordinary simplicity one of the most vividly contrasting images in Western art history.  Isn't it ironic that this produce from the Tree of Knowledge should in fact conceal knowledge, vision, and interpersonal relationship?  Perhaps art, too, hides more than it shows; and a painting gets in the way of some imminent reality that just slightly escapes us.

Surrealism (pt. 16)

Magritte painted two versions of The Listening Room (of which this is the 1958 version), an image of an enormous apple occupying the space of an entire room.  This continues to be one of the artist's most enticing paintings to analyze.

The apple is either humongous or the room is tiny.  One is an impossibility, but the other is simply inexplicable.  If this is indeed an "apple-sized room" (haha…sorry, that's funny to say), then where are we, the made-up land of Lilliput?  The presence of the window on the left makes this mystery all the more tantalizing; for we would surely be able to tell where we are if we could only get a glimpse outside this window.  But the artist has cut that section off of the painting.  We are instead left with a closed room which appears to contain no doors.  How did we get in this enclosed space?  What's more, how did the apple get here?  It is thrown into this scene without explanation—and yet our mind tells us what we are seeing and instantly tries to resolve the chaos of the situation.  The room looks normal enough; the apple looks normal enough—it's just, their relation is utterly incompatible.  And this is called The Listening Room, strangely enough, evoking an entirely new context under which to view the artwork.  Neither the walls of the room nor the apple would make noise, would they?  So, theoretically, this scene should be one of silence.  Then…what are we "listening" to?  This painting appears to be all a visual puzzle, so how could the sensation of sound bear any relevance whatsoever to this scene?  And yet, our reaction to the painting changes when we hear the title, doesn't it?  We become aware of the quietness of this scene—a ridiculous awareness, since this painting has practically nothing to do with sound.  The absurdity of Surrealist paintings such as The Listening Room afforded artistic expression to a growing Absurdist literary movement, which peaked in the famous writings of Algerian-French writer/philosopher Albert Camus.  In Postmodernism, the movement became fully realized in the advent of Existentialism.

Surrealism (pt. 15)

René Magritte often dressed around in a suit and bowler cap as an expression of individuality and personal style among the art community.  This formality was part of the artist's charm and wit to impress upon others a deceptive pretence of simplicity, when in fact his art contained some of the most cerebral and complex themes to grasp.  Not like Salvador Dalí, who adopted eccentric mannerisms, fashions, and behaviors in public to further promote his style of Surrealism, Magritte took pleasure in fooling the crowd with seemingly ordinary formality and blending in, as it were, with the rest of the world—but not quite.

This painting, Golconda, is named after a historical city in India which now rests preserved near the modern city of Hyderabad.  The scene of the painting appears to be one associated more with European suburban settings, featuring plain-looking apartment-type buildings.  It's an unexceptional day with cloudless skies and no indication of disturbance.  In fact, there seems to be nothing abnormal about this painting at all, just not taking into account that it is populated with floating men.  Whether they are falling like rain or simply levitating in mathematical equidistance, these figures compose a crowd.  And, like most crowds which one can find oneself in, there is more to this crowd than meets the eye.

Besides the interest in their odd placement along the canvas in geometric symmetry (and the fact that they're just standing in mid-air), the intrigue of this painting is the optical illusion of perceiving a subtle difference when handed a grandiose one.  We at first notice men scattered about in the sky, and their abundant sequence communicates uniformity.  In truth, they are all wearing similar costumes, but actually Magritte has painted each man individually.  What at first looks like a cut-and-paste-type replication practice proves in fact to be an experiment in cognition.  Do we see individual men when we first look at this painting, or do we instantly see a collection of identical, floating males wearing the same kind of suit and bowler cap?  Their spatial layout in the scene even fools our eyes from noticing that several of the men are facing different directions.  They are different heights and of differing builds, with unique facial features—but all we notice is that they are standing on air.  The mind, in that sense, leaps to the surreal; it first pays attention to the abnormal and only after the fact perhaps takes into account the practical, the ordinary, and the realistic.  And, if we're really paying close attention, we'll finally notice the unusual background—particularly the strange façade of the building on the right.  Its uppermost row of windows is cut off in an architectural anomaly of design.  The building ends too soon.  But how many of us spotted that when we first took a look at this painting?  Your brain is stunned by the sight of the floating men and yet doesn't seem to fully notice the men or the scene which they inhabit.  What is it about the surreal that our minds instantly connect to, though it be totally foreign or utterly incomprehensible?  The Surrealists explored this connection with fervor in the early half of the 20^th century.

Surrealism (pt. 14)

This reflective painting from 1933 is titled The Human Condition.

Once again, this is a philosophical trick, like an optical illusion for the brain as well as the eye.  We see a painted canvas perfectly matching up with the image seen out of an open window.  The canvas replaces the reality.  (Of course, what is behind that canvas could be totally different, and only matched up to the edges—for instance, there might be no tree in the real landscape out the window; but we can't know, since the painting covers it).  The thick curtains drawn back on either side of the window make allusion to theatricality and may imply that everything out the window is merely a show, which the canvas then copies (producing a fiction within a fiction).  But this is all canvas; the whole thing is a painting, created by artist René Magritte.  So…what reality is this painting covering up or mimicking?  Does art, as the saying goes, imitate life?  But this is a painting.  So it's not real; it's every bit as much of a lie as the canvas within itself.  Is the concept, therefore, pretend as well?  Ouf!  It's psychological quicksand to enter into these paintings, is it not?  Fun to discuss, and I enjoy it; but at times, utterly incomprehensible.  …I guess that's "the human condition," right?  (Haha)

Surrealism (pt. 13)

We'll start with his most famous painting, entitled The Treachery of Images, completed in 1929.  This Surrealist work shows a pipe with the words below (written in French): "This is not a pipe."

It's not a pipe.  It is an image of a pipe.  What Magritte has painted on the canvas is a two-dimensional representation of a real object.  So, the art has lied to us, correct?  He's shown us a "pipe," but it's not really a pipe; it's just an image of one.  (Pretty simple, right?)  But if the art is indeed "treacherous," then why the confessional inscription?  The same painting telling us with an image that we are seeing a pipe is telling us with words that a pipe is most certainly not what we are seeing.  This is blatant self-contradiction.  One might ask why the artist bothered to paint the image of the pipe if he was only going to counter-argue his own drawing.  Besides, the human eye can tell that's not really a pipe.  We know it when we see the painting hanging up in a museum—that it's the not the real object it is depicting.  Very well, what about the words, then?  What about the concept?  After all, the words telling us that the pipe is not a pipe are just painted words on a canvas as well—perhaps they are just part of "the show."  This is "the treachery of images."  Our eye can discern the pipe from the painting, but our mind cannot determine reality from abstraction—perhaps the artist means to suggest there is no reality but in abstraction, or vice-versa.

Surrealism (pt. 12)

If dreams, fantasy, and the subconscious serve as the inspiration for Surrealism, then what significance is to be found in things which aren't real?  Wouldn't we better spend our time looking at images corresponding to realities, such as the great historical paintings, like Jacques-Louis David's Oath of the Tennis Court?  The truth is that Surrealist artists saw a truth to be found within the subconscious—not just from a Freudian perspective but for the sake of art as well.  Like Manet, these artists sought to paint what they saw as the truth (albeit a different kind of truth, or with different approaches).  The deconstructive agenda of the prior generation—of the Dadaists and the Abstract and Non-Objective painters—was expanded with the Surrealists into a broader agenda not only commenting on art but reality itself.  Many of these paintings make overt and direct commentary on the nature of life and the human condition.  This can come about through the Surreal since our subconscious already works within a level of cognizance outside of the parameters of reality.  In other words, these confusing paintings address our minds in more direct ways than any other art we have looked at so far, because they directly call upon and engage that latent aspect of our psyche which communicates best through art: the subconscious.

René Magritte became famous for challenging the human eye to look at otherwise ordinary objects and scenes in different lights and different contexts.  His playful distortion of reality and perception commented on the expanding potential for creativity within the arts but also carried intriguing implications for philosophy and sociology in the real world.  The artist himself viewed his work as a means of exploring the truth about the human experience.

Surrealism (pt. 11)

This is a painting by Salvador Dalí that directly addresses the earlier Romantic artwork looked at, the Angelus by Jean-François Millet.  Here Dalí is criticizing it.  The basic shapes of Millet's original work remain intact, but you might say that the substance has completely been replaced.  These are no longer people; they're "archeological reminiscences."  Trees are growing on them like the ruins to some old castle—there are even birds perching and flying around them.  They are still standing in a field, but it's no longer the field of a farm.  No plants grow here; we are in some kind of desert.  There is no steeple in the background.  The sky is dramatically lit in the dim light of dusk again, but now there are clouds and a sickly-colored smog filling the air.  Everything's changed.  And, what is most shocking, Dalí has added the birds and a few onlookers to give perspective to the two central Angelus-inspired subjects—they're huge.  These two stone or brick constructions are towering above what appears to be an adult and a child, holding hands (probably a child and parent) in the bottom center of the work.  The parent stretches out its arm at the scene, as if showing and explaining to the child all about this image.  It's like a monument people go and look at—and that, in his derisive criticism, is what Salvador Dalí describes art as having become.

Paintings like Millet's Angelus had become staple works of historically acclaimed art by the time Dalí painted this.  Future generations are trained to learn from and expound upon the past.  As we have been studying art, we have seen a progression of art from stylistic period to stylistic period, a sequence of evolution in which no single genre can be understood out of its context (precisely why a comprehensive study of art history is so vital to understanding art).  In that sense, then, artists have been building off of previous generations of artists for centuries not merely because it is a phenomenon taught to young artists within the culture of educational development but also because it is a thing fundamentally connected with the medium throughout history.  But there is a danger of "institutionalizing" art in a way that, at least as Dalí characterized it, makes a spectacle of it, which stands on display in some sterilized museum warehouse for a few people to come and blankly gaze at a few days out of the year.  It loses its value and meaning.  It hollows out into a tourist attraction or decays into a recreational monument, like these two statues.  (Significantly, the left figure is literally hollowed out with openings resembling windows).  But, more egregiously than anything else, it removes a work from its original context and begs for it to be equally appreciated in a totally new environment.  Well, Dalí saw the Angelus as a work incompatible with the reality of the Modern world.  The once-verdant field has become a waste land, both literally in the painting and, in the metaphoric sense, historically in the real world.  Ravaged by industrialization and world war, artists like Dalí couldn't see the old Romanticism of beauty in nature as it once had been.  It didn't fit with the contemporary world as they knew and understood it.  In other words, Millet was outdated (hence, the ruins, overgrown trees, nesting birds, and ominous sky).  The two statues have grown out of proportion and extremely large in the symbolic sense like Millet's canonized masterpiece has grown historically as one of art history's staple inventions, but in reaching such enormous size, they've lost their fleshiness and turned into cracked, rotting "archaeological reminiscences" that cast ominous, rather than reassuring, shadows over onlookers.  They stand as completely out-of-place objects in their world.  Is this the death of art?

Perhaps it's more.  Surrealists such as Dalí saw not only the corruption of true art in the Modern world but the corruption of the old thematic principles of art, such as those present in the original Angelus.  You will recall the original painting had very strong religious implications; the two figures were bowing in prayer, with a church steeple in the distance to throw a Christian tone over the whole scene.  But these two figures aren't praying; they're not even people.  They are just stone constructions, incapable of prayer, of thought, of feeling, or of any intelligence.  They're not doing anything (the original two were farmers), and there is no steeple to set the scene in context.  Perhaps it's the old devotion to Christian faith that has been hollowed out, and this, more than the art criticisms, is what makes Millet outdated, incompatible, and no longer legitimate in the Modern world.  This painting conveys a profound loss of innocence and a "withdrawal of faith."  In an earth no longer producing the good fruit of men's labors but instead one which has become desolate in the wake of early 20^th century world war and industrial devastation—perhaps in this world, there is no longer any God to turn to.