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Lot Essay
René Magritte’s La belle au bois dormant shows a horse’s head in profile, framed by a cosmopolitan window in a wall of roses. Fairytale, colourism and Surrealism combine to vivid effect in a picture that is a deliberate sensory overload. This is a version of Sleeping Beauty in which Magritte has taken the viewer far from the territory of the Brothers Grimm.
Magritte showed La belle au bois dormant, which was given by the artist to his sister-in-law Léontine Hoyez-Berger before being inherited by his own wife Georgette, in a one-man show at the Galerie Dietrich in Brussels in 1946, the year it was created. This was a landmark exhibition, as it marked the launch of Magritte’s so-called ‘Surréalisme en plein soleil’. That notion is clearly visible in La belle au bois dormant, which is filled with sumptuous colour and light. The wall of roses surrounding the horse’s head, shown through a window on an incongruously upper floor, allows Magritte to tap into a realm of impossible fantasy. At the same time, he is also able to play with the traditional genres and traditions of art: after all, this picture is both a floral piece and a landscape, with an equine portrait at its core.
La belle au bois dormant took as its inspiration an illustration that Magritte himself had created for a book by his friend, the poet Paul Eluard’s Les nécessités de la vie et les conséquences des rêves précédé d’exemples, which was published the same year this gouache was created. In Titres, the publication in which Magritte explained his titles and which also dates to 1946, the artist discussed the idea behind this composition: ‘In a magic world, beauty has taken on the appearance of a horse and the forest that of a house’ (Magritte, quoted in D. Sylvester (ed.), S. Whitfield & M. Raeburn, René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. IV, London, 1994, p. 74). In this way, Magritte has twisted the narrative of the famous story of Sleeping Beauty.
Instead of the titular princess being asleep with her household in the midst of a thicket of brambles and briars – wild roses – in La belle au bois dormant she is within this floral edifice. Its proportions even hint at the house being in continental Europe, in say Paris or Belgium. Perhaps the surrounding area is more developed, or at least more modern in its style. Sleeping Beauty was one of the stories that the Brothers Grimm collated, recorded and made even more famous. The protagonist is often known by another name, ‘Briar Rose.’ The story had existed beforehand in a number of versions and remains popular to this day. Over the years, it has inspired a number of artists and writers, including Edward Burne-Jones. Often, artists show the sleeping princess surrounded by the thick walls of wild roses that protect her and through which her saviour prince must struggle in order to find her, end her enchanted spell and gain her hand. Magritte shows a version of this tale that is on the one hand more absurd, with its horse perched in the window, and on the other more domestic, featuring the landmarks of our own urban fabric.
The opulent colours of La belle au bois dormant reveal the ‘plein soleil’ that Magritte sought to capture in the wake of the Second World War. By this time, he had tired of what he conceived of as the portentous oppression of much Surrealism. Magritte himself had painted some pictures that had featured ominous atmospheres in the run-up to the Second World War, and was conscious that they appeared all too prophetic of the grim realities that ensued. From 1943, Magritte instead created a string of pictures that showed a Surreal prophecy of enlightenment. In order to do this, he developed a new style, which many people likened to Pierre-Auguste Renoir, but which in fact paid tribute to Impressionism in general. Indeed, La belle au bois dormant can be seen to share some characteristics with the surprisingly modern and influential late works of Claude Monet.
For an artist whose works aimed to jolt their viewers out of taking the world around them for granted, Magritte’s turn towards Impressionism was a masterstroke: he was taking an artistic style that itself channelled the subjectivity of the artist’s experiences, as opposed to the more inscrutable, classic style that Magritte himself had formerly employed. This use of the feathered and swirling brushstrokes so in evidence in La belle au bois dormant therefore added another layer of mystery to the picture. Magritte himself explained this in a letter written nine years later: ‘Without Impressionism, I do not believe we would know this feeling of real objects perceived through colours and nuances, and free of all classical reminiscences. The public never liked the Impressionists, although it may seem to; it always sees these pictures with an eye dominated by mental analysis – otherwise, we must agree that freedom runs riot’ (Magritte, quoted in H. Torczyner, Magritte: Ideas and Images, trans. R. Miller, New York, 1977, p. 186).
The exhibition held at the Galerie Dietrich in 1946 – and featuring La belle au bois dormant – was intended as the launch of this new, positive Surrealism. Magritte showed twenty-three works, including thirteen gouaches, all executed in one of two very large sizes – either 50 x 35 cm., or the larger 60 x 40 cm. format of La belle au bois dormant (so not only rare but arguably the largest of Magritte’s gouache formats). Several of the other gouaches in this show featured transformations, substitutions and juxtapositions that resonated with La belle au bois dormant. For instance, Le civilisateur features a dog in the foreground with a forest shaped like a castle in the background. For the catalogue, his friend Paul Nougé wrote an endorsement of Magritte’s new vision, celebrating the ecstatic freedom so in evidence in these joyous works in terms that clearly apply to La belle au bois dormant: ‘Magritte’s purpose, our purpose, has not changed. The world around us seems to be becoming smaller, shrinking, shrivelling into a thin black and grey system, in which signs take predominance over things. Our constant ambition, then, is to restore to this world its brilliance, its colour, its provocative force, its charm and, in a word, its unpredictable combinatory possibilities. There are no longer any forbidden feelings, even if they respond to the names: serenity, joy and pleasure. And if, occasionally, we come upon “beauty”, like Stendhal we promise it as a poignant promise of happiness’ (Nougé, quoted in D. Sylvester (ed.), S. Whitfield & M. Raeburn, René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. II, London, 1993, p. 137).
Magritte showed La belle au bois dormant, which was given by the artist to his sister-in-law Léontine Hoyez-Berger before being inherited by his own wife Georgette, in a one-man show at the Galerie Dietrich in Brussels in 1946, the year it was created. This was a landmark exhibition, as it marked the launch of Magritte’s so-called ‘Surréalisme en plein soleil’. That notion is clearly visible in La belle au bois dormant, which is filled with sumptuous colour and light. The wall of roses surrounding the horse’s head, shown through a window on an incongruously upper floor, allows Magritte to tap into a realm of impossible fantasy. At the same time, he is also able to play with the traditional genres and traditions of art: after all, this picture is both a floral piece and a landscape, with an equine portrait at its core.
La belle au bois dormant took as its inspiration an illustration that Magritte himself had created for a book by his friend, the poet Paul Eluard’s Les nécessités de la vie et les conséquences des rêves précédé d’exemples, which was published the same year this gouache was created. In Titres, the publication in which Magritte explained his titles and which also dates to 1946, the artist discussed the idea behind this composition: ‘In a magic world, beauty has taken on the appearance of a horse and the forest that of a house’ (Magritte, quoted in D. Sylvester (ed.), S. Whitfield & M. Raeburn, René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. IV, London, 1994, p. 74). In this way, Magritte has twisted the narrative of the famous story of Sleeping Beauty.
Instead of the titular princess being asleep with her household in the midst of a thicket of brambles and briars – wild roses – in La belle au bois dormant she is within this floral edifice. Its proportions even hint at the house being in continental Europe, in say Paris or Belgium. Perhaps the surrounding area is more developed, or at least more modern in its style. Sleeping Beauty was one of the stories that the Brothers Grimm collated, recorded and made even more famous. The protagonist is often known by another name, ‘Briar Rose.’ The story had existed beforehand in a number of versions and remains popular to this day. Over the years, it has inspired a number of artists and writers, including Edward Burne-Jones. Often, artists show the sleeping princess surrounded by the thick walls of wild roses that protect her and through which her saviour prince must struggle in order to find her, end her enchanted spell and gain her hand. Magritte shows a version of this tale that is on the one hand more absurd, with its horse perched in the window, and on the other more domestic, featuring the landmarks of our own urban fabric.
The opulent colours of La belle au bois dormant reveal the ‘plein soleil’ that Magritte sought to capture in the wake of the Second World War. By this time, he had tired of what he conceived of as the portentous oppression of much Surrealism. Magritte himself had painted some pictures that had featured ominous atmospheres in the run-up to the Second World War, and was conscious that they appeared all too prophetic of the grim realities that ensued. From 1943, Magritte instead created a string of pictures that showed a Surreal prophecy of enlightenment. In order to do this, he developed a new style, which many people likened to Pierre-Auguste Renoir, but which in fact paid tribute to Impressionism in general. Indeed, La belle au bois dormant can be seen to share some characteristics with the surprisingly modern and influential late works of Claude Monet.
For an artist whose works aimed to jolt their viewers out of taking the world around them for granted, Magritte’s turn towards Impressionism was a masterstroke: he was taking an artistic style that itself channelled the subjectivity of the artist’s experiences, as opposed to the more inscrutable, classic style that Magritte himself had formerly employed. This use of the feathered and swirling brushstrokes so in evidence in La belle au bois dormant therefore added another layer of mystery to the picture. Magritte himself explained this in a letter written nine years later: ‘Without Impressionism, I do not believe we would know this feeling of real objects perceived through colours and nuances, and free of all classical reminiscences. The public never liked the Impressionists, although it may seem to; it always sees these pictures with an eye dominated by mental analysis – otherwise, we must agree that freedom runs riot’ (Magritte, quoted in H. Torczyner, Magritte: Ideas and Images, trans. R. Miller, New York, 1977, p. 186).
The exhibition held at the Galerie Dietrich in 1946 – and featuring La belle au bois dormant – was intended as the launch of this new, positive Surrealism. Magritte showed twenty-three works, including thirteen gouaches, all executed in one of two very large sizes – either 50 x 35 cm., or the larger 60 x 40 cm. format of La belle au bois dormant (so not only rare but arguably the largest of Magritte’s gouache formats). Several of the other gouaches in this show featured transformations, substitutions and juxtapositions that resonated with La belle au bois dormant. For instance, Le civilisateur features a dog in the foreground with a forest shaped like a castle in the background. For the catalogue, his friend Paul Nougé wrote an endorsement of Magritte’s new vision, celebrating the ecstatic freedom so in evidence in these joyous works in terms that clearly apply to La belle au bois dormant: ‘Magritte’s purpose, our purpose, has not changed. The world around us seems to be becoming smaller, shrinking, shrivelling into a thin black and grey system, in which signs take predominance over things. Our constant ambition, then, is to restore to this world its brilliance, its colour, its provocative force, its charm and, in a word, its unpredictable combinatory possibilities. There are no longer any forbidden feelings, even if they respond to the names: serenity, joy and pleasure. And if, occasionally, we come upon “beauty”, like Stendhal we promise it as a poignant promise of happiness’ (Nougé, quoted in D. Sylvester (ed.), S. Whitfield & M. Raeburn, René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. II, London, 1993, p. 137).