Rene Magritte



Photograph of Rene Magritte



Rene Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty images that fall under the umbrella of surrealism. His work is known for challenging observers preconditioned perceptions of reality.

 

Rene Magritte was born in Lessines, in the province of Hainaut, Belgium, in 1898.

He began lessons in drawing in 1910. On 12 March 1912, his mother committed suicide by drowning herself in the River Sambre but this was not her first attempt at taking her own life. She had made many over a number of years, driving her husband Leopold to lock her into her bedroom. One day she escaped, and was missing for days. Her body was later discovered a mile or so down the nearby river.

The Empire of Lights, c. 1950–1954, Museum of Modern Art

 

 

Rene Magritte studied at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels 1916-18, and settled in Brussels. He made his living for  a time by designing wallpaper and drawing fashion advertisements. He became very friendly with poets and writers such as Mesens, Goemans, Scutenaire and Nouge, who shared his interest in evoking mystey and were later the founders of the Belgian Surrealist group.

The Empire of Lights is a series of oil on canvas paintings by Rene Magritte painted between 1953 and 1954. They depict the paradoxical image of a nighttime street, lit only by a single street light, beneath a daytime sky. The paintings inspired a scene in the 1973 horror film The Exorcist, used on posters as well as home video releases, in which the character Father Merrin stands in front of the MacNeil family's house.