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Lot Essay
Writing to his friend and patron Claude Spaak in January 1941, René Magritte described the abiding concern that was driving his most recent work: ‘All my latest pictures are leading me toward the simplified painting that I have long wanted to achieve. It is in short the ever more rigorous search for what, in my view, is the essential element in art; purity and precision in the image of mystery which becomes decisive through being shorn of everything incidental or accidental’ (quoted in D. Sylvester, ed., René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, vol. II, Oil Paintings and Objects, 1931-1948, London, 1993, p. 288). The deceptive simplicity of La plaine de l’air, with its near-barren mountainscape, overcast sky and singular leaf-tree, lends the composition a forceful immediacy. At the same time, the solitary leaf-tree may be read as a Surrealist twist on the Romantic fascination with the natural sublime, invoking the example of Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings of imposing, lone trees, such as Der einsame Baum (1822; Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin). Here, the image of the powerful ancient tree, standing tall, unwavering and proud within the landscape, is given a bold Surreal twist, prompting the viewer to once again view the world around them with a sense of awe and mystery.
At the same time, La plaine de l’air may be read as a captivating Surrealist interpretation of the atmosphere of anxiety, threat and isolation that engulfed Europe during the earliest stages of the Second World War. Painted in 1940, it is one of only fifteen paintings completed by the artist over the course of this turbulent year, as his life was directly disrupted by the conflict, leaving him little time or energy to paint. Formerly in the collection of the poet and art dealer, Camille Goemans, La plaine de l’air is among the first works purchased by Roger and Josette Vanthournout for their eclectic collection, having been acquired in 1968.
Like many of his Surrealist colleagues, the outbreak of the War and the subsequent invasion of Belgium ushered in a period of great upheaval for Magritte. Less than a week after German troops marched on the country, the artist left Brussels for France without his wife Georgette, who had refused to be separated from her sister or her lover, the Surrealist poet Paul Colinet, whom she had been engaged in an affair with for several years. Magritte was particularly concerned that some of his previous political statements would provide the advancing army with grounds for persecution, and so he was among a small group of avant-garde writers and artists, including Paul Scutenaire, Raoul Ubac and their wives, who fled south together on 15 May 1940. Traveling by train, taxi, tram and truck, they reached Lille, before proceeding onwards to Paris. From there, Magritte carried on alone to the walled city of Carcassonne, where he initially stayed with the poet Joë Bousquet. Writing to Roland Penrose in London, Magritte reported his arrival on 23 May: ‘After a very chequered journey, I have at last reached Carcassonne… As you may imagine, I am in a rather low state, I feel very isolated…’ (quoted in ibid., p. 81).
While Magritte appears to have enjoyed the near constant parade of people and personalities who passed through Carcassonne during the ensuing weeks, the encroaching threat of violence and the lack of news from Georgette prompted his decision to return to his native Belgium. Following an abandoned attempt to cycle home, and numerous delays with his travel papers, Magritte finally set off on an arduous journey across the border, through a landscape now torn asunder by war, reaching Brussels in late August. He swiftly reconciled with Georgette, and would spend the following four years living and working quietly in the city under German Occupation. It is unclear if La plaine de l’air was painted before or after Magritte’s return from France – while he never painted the War literally, his work from this period is infused with a distinct sense of foreboding and disquiet, as he sought a means of capturing and recording the pervading mood that marked life in the shadow of the conflict.
At the centre of La plaine de l’air stands one of Magritte’s favourite recurring motifs, the totemic leaf-tree, overlooking an empty, mountainous landscape. The subject of the leaf-tree had first emerged in Magritte’s work in 1935 as the protagonist of La géante (Sylvester, no. 362; Private collection), and was part of his systematic investigation into the qualities and characteristics that define these familiar titans of the natural world. Using his signature techniques of disruption, the artist boldly upends our expectations by transforming the image of the tree into a single, giant leaf, attached to a thick trunk. In this way, Magritte magnifies the small, individual elements that are integral to the tree’s make-up, allowing them to completely dominate its form. Writing to André Breton in 1934, Magritte explained the seeds of the idea that underpinned this dramatic alteration: ‘I am trying… to discover what it is in a tree that belongs to it specifically, but which would run counter to our concept of a tree’ (letter to Breton, quoted in ibid., p. 194).
Indeed, trees in their various forms took over Magritte’s imagination in 1940 – he turned to them repeatedly in his compositions from that year, using their familiar forms to explore different incarnations and apparitions, dislocations and unexpected transformations. In La parade (Sylvester, no. 476; Private collection), for example, the artist placed a strong, towering trunk on a stage, a rich crimson curtain draped behind it, while in Le plagiat (Sylvester, no. 472), a simple floral still life is silhouetted and cut-out to reveal a view of a delicate cherry tree in full spring-time blossom. Several pictures entitled La recherche de l’absolu (Sylvester, nos. 481-483), meanwhile, explored a new direction in the leaf-tree motif, where the veins of the leaf doubled as branches, the thin network of lines visible as the tree is bare of foliage, captured in the depths of winter. In La plaine de l’air, Magritte leans into the unsettling nature of the leaf-tree motif, emphasising its strange alien qualities, in order to accentuate the jarring disruption. Standing alone on the rocky promontory, it appears to assess the terrain as if keeping watch, though its purpose and presence remains ambiguous and uncertain. Pentimenti in the lower left of the canvas suggest that Magritte may have initially intended to include a small bird within the scene, taking flight as it escapes into the air.
La plaine de l’air was included in a small exhibition of Magritte’s work staged at the Galerie Dietrich in Brussels in January 1941, where it was singled out by critics as a prime example of the artist’s ‘pure and intense’ Surrealist voice (G. Marlier, quoted in ibid., p. 278). The show, which featured fifteen recent paintings and five drawings by the artist, was organised by Walter Schwarzenberg, who had been a key supporter of Magritte’s work since the 1920s, having previously been a partner in the Galerie Le Centaure. Forced to declare bankruptcy and close the Galerie Le Centaure in 1932, Schwarzenberg decided to return to art dealing in 1940, opening a discrete gallery on one floor of his family’s bookshop, Dietrich’s, at 83 Montagne de la Cour. Despite the restrictions of the Occupation and its dampening effects on avant-garde culture, Magritte was able to sell several works from the show, providing him with much needed funds. Writing to Edward James, he proclaimed that the modest sales would allow him ‘to last out for a few months and continue working’ (quoted in ibid., p. 87).
At the same time, La plaine de l’air may be read as a captivating Surrealist interpretation of the atmosphere of anxiety, threat and isolation that engulfed Europe during the earliest stages of the Second World War. Painted in 1940, it is one of only fifteen paintings completed by the artist over the course of this turbulent year, as his life was directly disrupted by the conflict, leaving him little time or energy to paint. Formerly in the collection of the poet and art dealer, Camille Goemans, La plaine de l’air is among the first works purchased by Roger and Josette Vanthournout for their eclectic collection, having been acquired in 1968.
Like many of his Surrealist colleagues, the outbreak of the War and the subsequent invasion of Belgium ushered in a period of great upheaval for Magritte. Less than a week after German troops marched on the country, the artist left Brussels for France without his wife Georgette, who had refused to be separated from her sister or her lover, the Surrealist poet Paul Colinet, whom she had been engaged in an affair with for several years. Magritte was particularly concerned that some of his previous political statements would provide the advancing army with grounds for persecution, and so he was among a small group of avant-garde writers and artists, including Paul Scutenaire, Raoul Ubac and their wives, who fled south together on 15 May 1940. Traveling by train, taxi, tram and truck, they reached Lille, before proceeding onwards to Paris. From there, Magritte carried on alone to the walled city of Carcassonne, where he initially stayed with the poet Joë Bousquet. Writing to Roland Penrose in London, Magritte reported his arrival on 23 May: ‘After a very chequered journey, I have at last reached Carcassonne… As you may imagine, I am in a rather low state, I feel very isolated…’ (quoted in ibid., p. 81).
While Magritte appears to have enjoyed the near constant parade of people and personalities who passed through Carcassonne during the ensuing weeks, the encroaching threat of violence and the lack of news from Georgette prompted his decision to return to his native Belgium. Following an abandoned attempt to cycle home, and numerous delays with his travel papers, Magritte finally set off on an arduous journey across the border, through a landscape now torn asunder by war, reaching Brussels in late August. He swiftly reconciled with Georgette, and would spend the following four years living and working quietly in the city under German Occupation. It is unclear if La plaine de l’air was painted before or after Magritte’s return from France – while he never painted the War literally, his work from this period is infused with a distinct sense of foreboding and disquiet, as he sought a means of capturing and recording the pervading mood that marked life in the shadow of the conflict.
At the centre of La plaine de l’air stands one of Magritte’s favourite recurring motifs, the totemic leaf-tree, overlooking an empty, mountainous landscape. The subject of the leaf-tree had first emerged in Magritte’s work in 1935 as the protagonist of La géante (Sylvester, no. 362; Private collection), and was part of his systematic investigation into the qualities and characteristics that define these familiar titans of the natural world. Using his signature techniques of disruption, the artist boldly upends our expectations by transforming the image of the tree into a single, giant leaf, attached to a thick trunk. In this way, Magritte magnifies the small, individual elements that are integral to the tree’s make-up, allowing them to completely dominate its form. Writing to André Breton in 1934, Magritte explained the seeds of the idea that underpinned this dramatic alteration: ‘I am trying… to discover what it is in a tree that belongs to it specifically, but which would run counter to our concept of a tree’ (letter to Breton, quoted in ibid., p. 194).
Indeed, trees in their various forms took over Magritte’s imagination in 1940 – he turned to them repeatedly in his compositions from that year, using their familiar forms to explore different incarnations and apparitions, dislocations and unexpected transformations. In La parade (Sylvester, no. 476; Private collection), for example, the artist placed a strong, towering trunk on a stage, a rich crimson curtain draped behind it, while in Le plagiat (Sylvester, no. 472), a simple floral still life is silhouetted and cut-out to reveal a view of a delicate cherry tree in full spring-time blossom. Several pictures entitled La recherche de l’absolu (Sylvester, nos. 481-483), meanwhile, explored a new direction in the leaf-tree motif, where the veins of the leaf doubled as branches, the thin network of lines visible as the tree is bare of foliage, captured in the depths of winter. In La plaine de l’air, Magritte leans into the unsettling nature of the leaf-tree motif, emphasising its strange alien qualities, in order to accentuate the jarring disruption. Standing alone on the rocky promontory, it appears to assess the terrain as if keeping watch, though its purpose and presence remains ambiguous and uncertain. Pentimenti in the lower left of the canvas suggest that Magritte may have initially intended to include a small bird within the scene, taking flight as it escapes into the air.
La plaine de l’air was included in a small exhibition of Magritte’s work staged at the Galerie Dietrich in Brussels in January 1941, where it was singled out by critics as a prime example of the artist’s ‘pure and intense’ Surrealist voice (G. Marlier, quoted in ibid., p. 278). The show, which featured fifteen recent paintings and five drawings by the artist, was organised by Walter Schwarzenberg, who had been a key supporter of Magritte’s work since the 1920s, having previously been a partner in the Galerie Le Centaure. Forced to declare bankruptcy and close the Galerie Le Centaure in 1932, Schwarzenberg decided to return to art dealing in 1940, opening a discrete gallery on one floor of his family’s bookshop, Dietrich’s, at 83 Montagne de la Cour. Despite the restrictions of the Occupation and its dampening effects on avant-garde culture, Magritte was able to sell several works from the show, providing him with much needed funds. Writing to Edward James, he proclaimed that the modest sales would allow him ‘to last out for a few months and continue working’ (quoted in ibid., p. 87).