Lot Essay
On 24 August 1961, whilst working on the oil version of La Cascade (S. 934), Magritte wrote to the poet and painter René Bosman, to whom he frequently turned for help in naming his compositions: "J'ai commencé le paysage dont je vous ai parlé...Si le sens qu'aurait immédiatement 'Le Retour à la Nature' n'était difficile à supporter, ce serait un bon titre, à condition de le comprendre en toute innocence." Magritte ended the letter two days later by saying "Vous trouverez, j'espère un beau titre pour 'Le Retour à la Nature' en voyant cette image qui me semble si extraordinairement vivante". In fact, the title 'La Cascade' was decided upon by Magritte's friend Jean Seeger.
It is clear that Magritte considered the 'La Cascade' image particuarly successful. He chose to illustrate the oil in colour in the April 1962 issue of Bosman's review Rhétorique and wrote the following explanation of the image in an exhibition catalogue of 1964: "Inspired thought - of which the pictorial description is possible - resembles only those forms presented by the world through that which is visible. My painting La Cascade is the description of an inspired thought which can be found simultaneously in the forest and away from the forest. In fact, this thought unites the foliage that is inside the forest with a painting which allows a distant forest to appear. I identify the description of such a thought with poetry. The title La Cascade suggests that this inspired thought gushed forth like a waterfall." (R. Magritte, exh. cat., Guggenheim International Award 1964, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Jan.-March 1964).
La Cascade is further related to a series of works by Magritte entitled La Condition Humaine (S. 351, 387, 1313, 1411 and 1515), begun some thirty years earlier in 1933. In this series Magritte positions an artist's easel, complete with landscape, within the landscape which the painting depicts.
It is clear that Magritte considered the 'La Cascade' image particuarly successful. He chose to illustrate the oil in colour in the April 1962 issue of Bosman's review Rhétorique and wrote the following explanation of the image in an exhibition catalogue of 1964: "Inspired thought - of which the pictorial description is possible - resembles only those forms presented by the world through that which is visible. My painting La Cascade is the description of an inspired thought which can be found simultaneously in the forest and away from the forest. In fact, this thought unites the foliage that is inside the forest with a painting which allows a distant forest to appear. I identify the description of such a thought with poetry. The title La Cascade suggests that this inspired thought gushed forth like a waterfall." (R. Magritte, exh. cat., Guggenheim International Award 1964, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Jan.-March 1964).
La Cascade is further related to a series of works by Magritte entitled La Condition Humaine (S. 351, 387, 1313, 1411 and 1515), begun some thirty years earlier in 1933. In this series Magritte positions an artist's easel, complete with landscape, within the landscape which the painting depicts.