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Lot Essay
'About that time [1915], through a trick of fate, someone handed me the illustrated catalogue of an exhibition of Futurist painting with a condescending smile, and no doubt the stupid intention of pulling my leg. I had before my eyes a powerful challenge to common sense which worried me greatly... In a state of positive intoxication I painted a whole series of futurist pictures. However, I don't think I have even been an orthodox Futurist, because the lyricism I wanted to achieve had an unvarying centre unrelated to artistic Futurism. It was a pure and powerful feeling: eroticism... The elements which entered into the composition of my pictures were loosely defined shapes and colours, so that those shapes and colours could be modified according to the demands of a certain dynamic rhythm' (Magritte, 'La ligne de vie', lecture given on 20 November 1938 at the Koninklijk Museum van Schoone Kunsten in Antwerp, reconstructed text quoted in D. Sylvester, ed., René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, vol. V, Antwerp, 1997, Chron. 38.5.2, p. 17).
The discovery of futurism exerted an enormous influence on the young Magritte, still in essence searching for his own means of artistic expression. Under the influence of artists such as Gino Severini, Magritte began a period of intense artistic innovation during the early 1920s. Commenting later on this influence he stated: 'I'm neither a "Surrealist" nor a "Cubist" nor a "Patawhatever", even though I have a fairly strong weakness for the so-called Cubist and Futurist "schools". Were I really an artiste-peintre, I would waver between these two disciplines' (Magritte in a letter to André Bosmans, April 1959).
Femme perfectly displays this new exploration of colour and form; Magritte has flattened the surface of the painting by juxtaposing planes of colour and has combined the shape of the alluringly reclining figure with the shapes that define her. Furthermore the angularity of the linear construction is contrasted by the grace and fluidity of the line that describes the shape of the body, creating the dynamic rhythms of the Futurists, while at the same time presenting an image of erotic langour.
The discovery of futurism exerted an enormous influence on the young Magritte, still in essence searching for his own means of artistic expression. Under the influence of artists such as Gino Severini, Magritte began a period of intense artistic innovation during the early 1920s. Commenting later on this influence he stated: 'I'm neither a "Surrealist" nor a "Cubist" nor a "Patawhatever", even though I have a fairly strong weakness for the so-called Cubist and Futurist "schools". Were I really an artiste-peintre, I would waver between these two disciplines' (Magritte in a letter to André Bosmans, April 1959).
Femme perfectly displays this new exploration of colour and form; Magritte has flattened the surface of the painting by juxtaposing planes of colour and has combined the shape of the alluringly reclining figure with the shapes that define her. Furthermore the angularity of the linear construction is contrasted by the grace and fluidity of the line that describes the shape of the body, creating the dynamic rhythms of the Futurists, while at the same time presenting an image of erotic langour.