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Lot Essay
Magritte's most successful images are those which prompt the viewer to perceive everyday reality in a new light, while also introducing a contemplative note, his picture encapsulating the metaphysical as well as the analytical. Soaring over the beach, the sky-bird in Magritte's Le baiser is a window both into another dimension, and into the nature of flight. Magritte takes the bird and uses it to prompt the viewer into questioning the wonders of flight, something so everyday that it takes a cue such as Le baiser in order to reappreciate and reassess its inherent glory. Many of Magritte's greatest works involved looking at our perceived reality as a problem that had to be solved, to be looked at in a new way. Magritte therefore has looked at the properties of flight and created an image that distils its essence through a surreal visual vocabulary of association. At the same time, flight has always been associated with transcendence, with the apotheoses of gods and messiahs, with a general striving towards the heavens. Here, Magritte has taken this to a new level, presenting the bird itself as the doorway to a world beyond our own.
This is itself the essence of the Magrittean vision, of the Belgian master's unique brand of Surrealism. Each picture opens up a new vista of understanding, a new and fresh invitation to view the world with the awe that it merits, rather than the dulled and accustomed vision that we habitually grant it. Le baiser is almost haiku-like in its simplicity and effectiveness. This is an intensely lean and condensed image in which each element performs a distinct function in guiding the viewer. Executed circa 1957, Le baiser is the reprisal of one of Magritte's most popular themes, showing Magritte's own appreciation of the image's success. Two other examples exist in oils, each differing in the manner in which Magritte has presented the various elements: in Le baiser, in a unique poetic transformation, the bird has been hewn from the night-sky, providing a rich contrast with the background.
This is itself the essence of the Magrittean vision, of the Belgian master's unique brand of Surrealism. Each picture opens up a new vista of understanding, a new and fresh invitation to view the world with the awe that it merits, rather than the dulled and accustomed vision that we habitually grant it. Le baiser is almost haiku-like in its simplicity and effectiveness. This is an intensely lean and condensed image in which each element performs a distinct function in guiding the viewer. Executed circa 1957, Le baiser is the reprisal of one of Magritte's most popular themes, showing Magritte's own appreciation of the image's success. Two other examples exist in oils, each differing in the manner in which Magritte has presented the various elements: in Le baiser, in a unique poetic transformation, the bird has been hewn from the night-sky, providing a rich contrast with the background.