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Lot Essay
Executed in 1946, La saveur des larmes is pervaded by a strange and bleak atmosphere wholly suited to Magritte's surreal vision. The blasted heath of the landscape is articulated only by a handful of leaf-trees. one of which has fallen, and the strange curtain at the side.
The leaf-tree was one of Magritte's most important Surreal motifs, emerging in the 1930s in La géante. Then, Magritte had sought to 'solve' the problems posed by various objects that we see around us, every day. His new-found code to deconstructing the world around us, and our perceptions of that world, involved such concise and eloquent visions as the egg in a cage, clouds on the ground, paintings before windows all-too-seamlessly presenting the world outside... In La saveur des larmes, these leaf-trees have been presented in juxtaposition to each other, emphasising the strangeness of their appearance, the impossible nature of this giant leaf with its broken trunk. Yet the weighty ambience of the landscape fills it with dignity and even tragedy. This is not a mere joke, but instead a revelation, a demand that we see the world around us in a new light. Indeed, with the strange curtain to the right of the image, Magritte is not only making a reference to the Old Masters, for instance by Vermeer, which incorporate a trompe-l'oeil curtain, but is also playing with the whole impression of space and wilderness within the picture. This desolate scene, devoid of human life, is discreetly punctured by a vast and impossible curtain. Magritte is thus playing with our perceptions, not only of trees, but also of the entire space within the picture. All the rules in Magritte's world beyond consciousness have been bent, but bent in a way that produces a unique and resonant poetry.
The leaf-tree was one of Magritte's most important Surreal motifs, emerging in the 1930s in La géante. Then, Magritte had sought to 'solve' the problems posed by various objects that we see around us, every day. His new-found code to deconstructing the world around us, and our perceptions of that world, involved such concise and eloquent visions as the egg in a cage, clouds on the ground, paintings before windows all-too-seamlessly presenting the world outside... In La saveur des larmes, these leaf-trees have been presented in juxtaposition to each other, emphasising the strangeness of their appearance, the impossible nature of this giant leaf with its broken trunk. Yet the weighty ambience of the landscape fills it with dignity and even tragedy. This is not a mere joke, but instead a revelation, a demand that we see the world around us in a new light. Indeed, with the strange curtain to the right of the image, Magritte is not only making a reference to the Old Masters, for instance by Vermeer, which incorporate a trompe-l'oeil curtain, but is also playing with the whole impression of space and wilderness within the picture. This desolate scene, devoid of human life, is discreetly punctured by a vast and impossible curtain. Magritte is thus playing with our perceptions, not only of trees, but also of the entire space within the picture. All the rules in Magritte's world beyond consciousness have been bent, but bent in a way that produces a unique and resonant poetry.