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Lot Essay
The notion of looking, of the spectacle, is always central to the practice of an artist, a concept that is explored vividly and lyrically by René Magritte in L’école buissonière. Within the fabric of a line of terraced buildings—similar to those one might see in the cities of the artist’s native Belgium—the proscenium arch of a theatre is embedded. Dating from around 1946, this gouache was exhibited at the Galerie Dietrich in Brussels towards the end of that year, during a period when Magritte was pioneering his bright, revolutionary new style of Surrealism ‘en plein soleil’—or Surrealism ‘in full sunlight.’ The picture was later given by Magritte to Rose Bauwens Capel, a friend who had been involved in the short-lived review Le ciel bleu, which had been published shortly after the Second World War, and featured unpublished contributions from Magritte, as well as André Breton, Pablo Picasso and Marcel Broodthaers.
L’école buissonière plays with a number of concepts, taking the everyday world that we see around us and twisting it into a new permutation. Magritte’s painting is intended as a revelation, highlighting an aspect of existence which we may have hitherto ignored. In its play with the interiority of the theatre and the exteriority of the street, it irreverently probes the concept of ‘the Uncanny,’ as explored by Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay ‘Das Unheimliche’ (in Imago, vol. V, 1919, pp. 297-354). Freud explained that what is heimlich, or homely, and unheimlich, or uncanny, can overlap. Here, this dichotomy bursts into our realm, as the arena of artifice that is the theatre, appears embedded within a row of houses. In 1951, Magritte would reverse this process when he was commissioned to decorate the interior of the auditorium at Théâtre Royal des Galeries in Brussels, painting a skyscape on the ceiling.
L’école buissonière is luminous, channelling the essential tenets of Magritte’s ‘sunlit’ Surrealism. Its style and content also reflect this ‘solar’ aspect: the picture is bright, its feathered brushstrokes forming a darting haze reminiscent of the works of the Impressionists, and of Pierre-Auguste Renoir in particular. In the wake of the Second World War and the Occupation of Belgium, which Magritte had largely endured after briefly fleeing to France, the artist was keen to avoid any overbearing sense of foreboding in his art, abandoning the darkness often associated with his fellow iconoclasts amongst the Surrealists. As he wrote to André Breton: ‘In opposition to the general pessimism I set the search for joy, for pleasure. I feel it lies with us, who have some notion of how feelings are invented, to make joy and pleasure, which are so ordinary and beyond our reach, accessible to us all. It is not a question of abandoning knowledge of objects and feelings that Surrealism has given birth to, but to use it for purposes different from the previous ones’ (letter to A. Breton, 24 June 1946; quoted in D. Sylvester, (ed.), René Magritte: Catalogue Raisonné, London, 1993, vol. II, p. 132).
In L’école buissonière, this is clear to see: Magritte has transformed a quotidian Belgian streetscape into a place of magic, of imagination, of infinite transformations and potential. As Magritte himself wrote, ‘The idea of wandering is applied here to objects. Life is no longer represented on a theatre stage, the wandering imagination sees life as a spectacle’ (quoted in ibid., London, 1994, vol. IV, p. 325). Magritte’s dramatic alteration of the street scene perfectly condenses the notion that life itself is enchanting enough that we should view it afresh, liberated from the jaded perspective of our experience – a concept all the more crucial when one considers the backdrop against which he was painting this, the aftermath of the Second World War. As Magritte explained to Breton: ‘The painting of my “solar period” is obviously in contradiction to many things we were convinced of before 1940… The confusion and panic that Surrealism wanted to create in order to bring everything into question were achieved much better by the Nazi idiots than by us, and there was no question of avoiding the consequences’ (letter to A. Breton, 24 June 1946; quoted in ibid., vol. II, p. 132).
The title of this work is intrinsically linked to Magritte’s determination to convince Breton of the validity of his new vision. When Breton likened these ‘solar’ pictures to the late works of Giorgio de Chirico, Magritte protested: ‘De Chirico was harking back to the neglected joys of Italian painting, returning to school instead of playing truant’ (letter to Breton, 20 August 1946; quoted in ibid., vol. IV, p. 325). By implication, Magritte clearly felt that he was playing truant. Indeed, the French phrase which gives this work its title, faire l’école buissonnière, adds an element of wildness – it implies playing in the bushes, invoking the freedoms and concealment that are invoked by the open-air theatre of the composition.
L’école buissonière was given to Rose Bauwens Capel, a cousin of Magritte’s friend and collaborator Paul Colinet, in exchange for another work from her collection, Le voyageur of 1937 (Sylvester, no. 431; Private collection). Capel later moved to Argentina, from whence she corresponded with Magritte, especially at the time of his gift of L’école buissonière. In his letters, Magritte discussed concepts of art: ‘Painting is incapable of expressing ideas and sentiments,’ he wrote. ‘Painting—when there is no mystification—is limited to showing’ (letter to Rose Capel, 7 February 1962). One such letter to Capel, dated 18 December 1961, is included in the present lot.
L’école buissonière plays with a number of concepts, taking the everyday world that we see around us and twisting it into a new permutation. Magritte’s painting is intended as a revelation, highlighting an aspect of existence which we may have hitherto ignored. In its play with the interiority of the theatre and the exteriority of the street, it irreverently probes the concept of ‘the Uncanny,’ as explored by Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay ‘Das Unheimliche’ (in Imago, vol. V, 1919, pp. 297-354). Freud explained that what is heimlich, or homely, and unheimlich, or uncanny, can overlap. Here, this dichotomy bursts into our realm, as the arena of artifice that is the theatre, appears embedded within a row of houses. In 1951, Magritte would reverse this process when he was commissioned to decorate the interior of the auditorium at Théâtre Royal des Galeries in Brussels, painting a skyscape on the ceiling.
L’école buissonière is luminous, channelling the essential tenets of Magritte’s ‘sunlit’ Surrealism. Its style and content also reflect this ‘solar’ aspect: the picture is bright, its feathered brushstrokes forming a darting haze reminiscent of the works of the Impressionists, and of Pierre-Auguste Renoir in particular. In the wake of the Second World War and the Occupation of Belgium, which Magritte had largely endured after briefly fleeing to France, the artist was keen to avoid any overbearing sense of foreboding in his art, abandoning the darkness often associated with his fellow iconoclasts amongst the Surrealists. As he wrote to André Breton: ‘In opposition to the general pessimism I set the search for joy, for pleasure. I feel it lies with us, who have some notion of how feelings are invented, to make joy and pleasure, which are so ordinary and beyond our reach, accessible to us all. It is not a question of abandoning knowledge of objects and feelings that Surrealism has given birth to, but to use it for purposes different from the previous ones’ (letter to A. Breton, 24 June 1946; quoted in D. Sylvester, (ed.), René Magritte: Catalogue Raisonné, London, 1993, vol. II, p. 132).
In L’école buissonière, this is clear to see: Magritte has transformed a quotidian Belgian streetscape into a place of magic, of imagination, of infinite transformations and potential. As Magritte himself wrote, ‘The idea of wandering is applied here to objects. Life is no longer represented on a theatre stage, the wandering imagination sees life as a spectacle’ (quoted in ibid., London, 1994, vol. IV, p. 325). Magritte’s dramatic alteration of the street scene perfectly condenses the notion that life itself is enchanting enough that we should view it afresh, liberated from the jaded perspective of our experience – a concept all the more crucial when one considers the backdrop against which he was painting this, the aftermath of the Second World War. As Magritte explained to Breton: ‘The painting of my “solar period” is obviously in contradiction to many things we were convinced of before 1940… The confusion and panic that Surrealism wanted to create in order to bring everything into question were achieved much better by the Nazi idiots than by us, and there was no question of avoiding the consequences’ (letter to A. Breton, 24 June 1946; quoted in ibid., vol. II, p. 132).
The title of this work is intrinsically linked to Magritte’s determination to convince Breton of the validity of his new vision. When Breton likened these ‘solar’ pictures to the late works of Giorgio de Chirico, Magritte protested: ‘De Chirico was harking back to the neglected joys of Italian painting, returning to school instead of playing truant’ (letter to Breton, 20 August 1946; quoted in ibid., vol. IV, p. 325). By implication, Magritte clearly felt that he was playing truant. Indeed, the French phrase which gives this work its title, faire l’école buissonnière, adds an element of wildness – it implies playing in the bushes, invoking the freedoms and concealment that are invoked by the open-air theatre of the composition.
L’école buissonière was given to Rose Bauwens Capel, a cousin of Magritte’s friend and collaborator Paul Colinet, in exchange for another work from her collection, Le voyageur of 1937 (Sylvester, no. 431; Private collection). Capel later moved to Argentina, from whence she corresponded with Magritte, especially at the time of his gift of L’école buissonière. In his letters, Magritte discussed concepts of art: ‘Painting is incapable of expressing ideas and sentiments,’ he wrote. ‘Painting—when there is no mystification—is limited to showing’ (letter to Rose Capel, 7 February 1962). One such letter to Capel, dated 18 December 1961, is included in the present lot.