"Surrealism has sometimes seemed to signify a rejection of the exterior world, insofar as automatic writing, automatic drawing, and automatic painting are frankly oriented toward the "interior model," in other words, toward the unconscious."

- José Pierre The Great Exterior Object

The Son of Man
René Magritte
1964
Oil on canvas

"At least it hides the face partly. Well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It's something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present." 

-René Magritte About the painting "The Son of Man"

Important facts about René Magritte:

"Resemblance - which can be made visible through painting - only deal with figures as they appear in the world: people, curtains, weapons, stars, solids, inscriptions, etc....spontaneously united in the order wherein the familiar and the strange are restored to mystery."

 -René Magritte Catalogue of the Magritte exhibition, Paris, Galerie Rive Droite, 1960

Easel

The Human Condition
René Magritte
1933
Oil on canvas

"The problem of the window gave rise to La condition humaine (The Human Condition). In front of a window seen from inside a room, I placed a painting representing exactly that portion of the landscape covered by the painting. Thus, the tree in the picture hid the tree behind it, outside the room. For the spectator, it was both inside the room within the painting and outside in the real landscape. This is how we see the world. We see it outside ourselves, and at the same time we only have a representation of it in ourselves. In the same way, we sometimes situate in the past that which is happening in the present. Time and space thus lose the vulgar meaning that only daily experience takes into account."  

-René Magritte La Ligne de Vie II, February 1940

A: the video of the sky has its real and unreal appearance - the opening to the outside world and a projection in the inside room.



The Human Condition

"Apropos the "invisible", I mean what is not visible: for example, heat, weight, pleasure, etc.There is the visible we see: the apple in front of the face in "La grande guerre" (The Great War), and the hidden visible: the face hidden by the visible apple. In Le banquet (The banquet) the sun hidden by the row of trees is invisible. It (like nothingness) is important not because it is invisible, but because it is absolutely necessary." 

-Letter from René Magritte to André Bosmans September 25, 1964

"At least it partially hides the face. Well then, here we have the apparent visible, the apple, hiding the hidden visible, the person's face. This process occurs endlessly. Each thing we see hides another, we always want to see what is been hidden by what we see. There is an interest in what is hidden and what the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a fairly intense feeling, a kind of contest, I could say, between the hidden visible and the apparent visible."
-From an interview by Sean Neyens, 1965 

A: In my work on the the ceiling, the hidden visible is yourself and the hiding subject is yourself.



Man and His Shadow

Decalcomania
René Magritte
1966
Oil on canvas

"As for the light, I think that if it has the power to make objects visible, its existence is manifest only if the objects receive it. Light is invisible as matter." 

-René Magritte La Ligne de Vie II, February 1940

The Empire of Lights

THe Empire of Lights
René Magritte
1950
Oil on canvas

"The landscape evokes night and the sky evokes the day. I find this evocation of night and day is endowed with the power to surprise and enchant us. I call this power: poetry.I believe this evocation has such poetic power, it is because, among other reasons, I have always felt the greatest interest in night and in day, yet without ever having preferred on or the other. This personal interest in night and day is a feeling of admiration and astonishment." 

- René Magritte Late April 1956

the hidden visible - the shadow
the cloud - the day light


the interior and the exterior - the outside world and the inside representation - the conscious and the automatic unconscious