Lot Essay
The inspiration for Magritte's celebrated series of burning objects began in 1934 when Magritte executed a grisaille of a burning key which he illustrated in the June 1934 issue of 'Documents 34'. That an inanimate object made of metal could automatically combust seemed to capture the very essence of Surrealism, the contrast between dream and reality, and so began Magritte's exploration of the subject and broadening of the theme. In July 1934 he described the possibilities of the subject to his great surrealist ally, André Breton: "You know the drawing in 'Documents 34' with burning objects made of different materials. A slightly different solution would be to present a single burning object provided it was made of iron, a key, a sewing-machine or a trumpet, for instance. I also though of 'A Solar Landscape', but in that case the whole thing would have been on a different level".
As the image developed, so did the theories behind it; Hammacher sees in the fire the roots of civilisation whilst Gablik goes a stage further to suggest that these paintings work on a more cosmic level: "In regard to this theme Magritte said he was trying to put himself in the place of pre-historic man when he first discovered that fire resulted from striking two stones together ... Magritte reminds us of fire as an absolute phenomeno, which can originate from stones without devouring them. The egg, the key, the paper, the wood, the tuba, the sofa, used in relation to the flames of fire, seems for a moment as absurd as the stones which also give birth to Fire" (A. M. Hammacher, René Magritte, London, 1974, p. 122).
"Fire is always an image of primary sexuality; it is apocalyptic among all phenomena, the only one to which the opposing attributes of good and evil can simultaneously be attributed. Thus it can contradict itself; it is one of the principles of universal explanation. Fire in Magritte's work is always an element of transcendence, the transition between the inanimate and the animate, one of the cosmic mysteries. The tuba seen out of its normal context has a disquieting presence; on fire it is even more disturbing, because of the deviation from its normal behaviour" (S. Gablik, Magritte, London, 1971, p. 93).
L'Échelle du Feu or The Ladder of Fire was executed at some point between the sending of this letter in July 1934 and July of the following year when the picture was exhibited in the Antwerp Salon of 1935. Magritte was very jealous of his invention and was always quick to point out that the pivotal surrealist image of a burning object was conceived by him. Twenty-five years later, Magritte showed his sensitivity to the plagiarism of his contemporaries when he wrote to Harry Torczyner in 1959, "As an illustration, I pick one of my pictures, La découverte de Feu, which shows a burning iron key (another picture shows a burning trumpet). No one had ever thought of that, or at any rate no one had ever mentioned it in speech or in paint. 'Gossip' might say that a few years after this picture was brought into the world, Dalí painted a burning Giraffe, and that thanks to a lot of publicity he is the one who is supposed to have invented the idea of an unexpected object on fire. 'Gossip' does not apply here, it does not recognise the purity and extent of inventiveness, it only recognises some superfluous exaggeration that makes the strict rigour of the original invention more palatable".
L'Échelle du Feu is amongst Magritte's earliest burning object paintings and was purchased in the 1930s by E. L. T. Mesens. It has been broadly exhibited, notably in the extensive American exhibition which began in the Museum of Modern Art in 1966 before touring to the Pasadena Art Museum, The Rose Art Museum, Berkeley and the Art Institute of Chicago. It was purchased by the present owner in 1974.
As the image developed, so did the theories behind it; Hammacher sees in the fire the roots of civilisation whilst Gablik goes a stage further to suggest that these paintings work on a more cosmic level: "In regard to this theme Magritte said he was trying to put himself in the place of pre-historic man when he first discovered that fire resulted from striking two stones together ... Magritte reminds us of fire as an absolute phenomeno, which can originate from stones without devouring them. The egg, the key, the paper, the wood, the tuba, the sofa, used in relation to the flames of fire, seems for a moment as absurd as the stones which also give birth to Fire" (A. M. Hammacher, René Magritte, London, 1974, p. 122).
"Fire is always an image of primary sexuality; it is apocalyptic among all phenomena, the only one to which the opposing attributes of good and evil can simultaneously be attributed. Thus it can contradict itself; it is one of the principles of universal explanation. Fire in Magritte's work is always an element of transcendence, the transition between the inanimate and the animate, one of the cosmic mysteries. The tuba seen out of its normal context has a disquieting presence; on fire it is even more disturbing, because of the deviation from its normal behaviour" (S. Gablik, Magritte, London, 1971, p. 93).
L'Échelle du Feu or The Ladder of Fire was executed at some point between the sending of this letter in July 1934 and July of the following year when the picture was exhibited in the Antwerp Salon of 1935. Magritte was very jealous of his invention and was always quick to point out that the pivotal surrealist image of a burning object was conceived by him. Twenty-five years later, Magritte showed his sensitivity to the plagiarism of his contemporaries when he wrote to Harry Torczyner in 1959, "As an illustration, I pick one of my pictures, La découverte de Feu, which shows a burning iron key (another picture shows a burning trumpet). No one had ever thought of that, or at any rate no one had ever mentioned it in speech or in paint. 'Gossip' might say that a few years after this picture was brought into the world, Dalí painted a burning Giraffe, and that thanks to a lot of publicity he is the one who is supposed to have invented the idea of an unexpected object on fire. 'Gossip' does not apply here, it does not recognise the purity and extent of inventiveness, it only recognises some superfluous exaggeration that makes the strict rigour of the original invention more palatable".
L'Échelle du Feu is amongst Magritte's earliest burning object paintings and was purchased in the 1930s by E. L. T. Mesens. It has been broadly exhibited, notably in the extensive American exhibition which began in the Museum of Modern Art in 1966 before touring to the Pasadena Art Museum, The Rose Art Museum, Berkeley and the Art Institute of Chicago. It was purchased by the present owner in 1974.