Magritte

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Rene Magritte's mother drowned herself when he was 12; the future painter saw her water-ravaged corpse with its face covered. This trauma, Sylvester asserts, helps explain the Belgian surrealist's consuming preoccupation with hidden faces and things. A curator of the major Magritte retrospective on display in New York, Houston and Chicago in 1992 and 1993, Sylvester pierces the tranquil bourgeois facade of the painter's marriage to Georgette Berger, whom Magritte virtually forced into a long affair with one of his closest friends. Every Magritte fan will want to own this monograph, both for its extraordinary wealth of illustrations (470, including 340 color plates) and its sensitive biographical-critical account of Magritte's career, from his earliest cubist- and futurist-influenced work through his discovery of Giorgio de Chirico to his development of a meticulously precise style that coolly confronted the world in all its terrible mystery and improbability. (Nov.)

Library Journal

Sylvester provides an in-depth portrait of Rene Magritte, a master of the surreal, who, in his own words, produced pictures ``in which the eye must `think' in a completely different way from the usual one.'' Magritte's imagination and poetic vision created illuminating paradoxes in paint that eventually influenced Pop Art. This biography, published in conjunction with the Magritte catalogue raisonne, of which Sylvester is editor, contains material ``outside the scope of that publication.'' It details Magritte's early world in Belgium; his lifelong marriage; the artistic influences, especially de Chirico; his dealers and colleagues; and the impact of World War II in a well-written narrative developed with the support of the Menil Foundation. There are 470 reproductions here, with over 340 in beautiful color. An excellent choice for libraries collecting widely in modern art.--Ellen Bates, New York

Booknews

Belgian Surrealist painter Rene Magritte (1898-1967) is one of the most popular figures of modern art, and a continuing influence, not only on art, abut on the imagery of mass culture as well. This study of his life and work by David Sylvester, the foremost expert on Magritte, seeks to enter into the mind and extraordinary creative processes of the great artist. The 470 illustrations accompanying the text include some 340 color plates. A number of important works are here presented for the first time in color reproductions. 91/4x111/4". Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Ray Olson

The Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte (1898-1967) had none of the flair for self-publicity of Salvador Dali. Instead, his paintings had it. That is, they are bold and simple enough to compel attention as the finest advertising art does, and it's hardly surprising that young Magritte created work expressly for advertising. You know many of his images: the locomotive rocketing directly out of a domestic fireplace; the lamp lit before a house deep in nighttime shadows although above it is a noonday sky; the portrait of a woman whose facial features are those of her torso--breasts for eyes, navel for nose, pubes for mouth; and others hard to describe briefly but as instantly impressive. The image is everything in Magritte's work; his technique is invisible: reasons enough for his popularity among those for whom most modern art is opaque. That his imagery is puzzling, funny, and frightening at the same time adds to its attraction. Much of it is well reproduced here, illustrating a text reproachable only for not giving page citations of where works under discussion appear in the book. (Then there's the peculiar index listing names that are only alluded to on some of the pages referenced.)