22nd July 2010

Magritte Museum

Today we visited the Magritte Museum. For the first time I was introduced surreal art, which I found very interesting. Until now we had been exposed to more classic styles of art. The change in style of art was very refreshing. Something that I really enjoyed about observing these paintings was the abstract nature of these paintings. Additionally, many of them did not have a clear message as to what Magritte wanted the observer to understand from the painting. It was left open to the observer to take their own meaning out of the painting. There were a few pictures that stood out to me. Some of them are:-

1. Black Magic 1945

This was a portrait of a naked girl, and was titled Black Magic. The meaning that I took out of this painting was that worldly desires are supposed to create an illusion. The naked girl represented worldly desires that are supposed to distract us away from our goals. The worldly desires work like black magic, changing the natural order of events. Therefore, one must be aware of getting attracted and lost in the various desires of life.

2. The Flavor Of Tears

In this painting, Rene has painted a bird in green with leaves at the foot of the bird. There is black ink on her chest, and a caterpillar that is climbing on it.

This painting had a very deep and sad message to it. Tears are supposed to make a person very depressive. It makes them think negatively, and it affects the entire body and mind of the person. That is what the black ink on the chest meant to me. The caterpillar climbing on her chest probably represents that life always moves on. We must learn to look at the brighter side of events. In that way, we can avoid the pain of tears and like the caterpillar slowly keep moving on with life.

3. The Search For Truth

In this portrait there is a fish standing on its tail in what looks like a tower with a lake in the background. The message that I got from this painting was that truth is all around us, and that we just refuse to see. Many a time, we tend to search for the truth travelling places, asking people all around us, but forget that all that we need to do is look inside our home. The home of a fish is water, but it is standing in a tower. Thereby, it cannot find the truth because it is looking in all the wrong places, as where it resides is the water and not the tower.