.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
René Magritte's pictures are forms of revelation, bringing to light the mysteries that underpin the world around us, to which our own eyes and experience have become inured. This concept is perfectly enshrined in La voix du sang, in which a tree opens up and reveals its own mysterious microcosm. Within its trunk are three cupboard-like openings: inside one is a bell, within another, a house with its lights illuminated; meanwhile, a third, upper door is tantalisingly ajar, leaving the viewer to wonder what may lurk behind it. Elsewhere, a normal, nocturnal landscape stretches into the distance with a river snaking its way across it; bright stars fleck the canopy of the sky. La voix du sang was acquired directly from the artist in the 1960s and since then has passed by descent, meaning that this is the first time it has ever appeared on the market; it was exhibited in Brussels in 1965, during Magritte's own lifetime.
While this picture is not dated, it relates to several other works that Magritte painted in the post-war years, especially in the 1940s and early 1960s. The idea of compartments within a tree had emerged in Magritte's 1935 painting, L'arbre savant. In 1947, a little over a decade later, this idea was transformed into the first painting entitled La voix du sang. To that picture, Magritte would dedicate the following poetic and mysterious lines in Titres, published the following year: 'The words dictated to us by the blood sometimes appear foreign to us. Here, it seems to want to command us to open up magic riches in the trees' (Magritte, quoted in D. Sylvester, ed., René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, vol. II, Oil Paintings and Objects, 1931-1948, London, 1993, p. 384). This hints at the key of comprehension that allows the viewer to perceive hidden truths within the trees. As Magritte himself said, 'The sphere and the house suggest enigmatic measurements to the tree' (Magritte in 1950, quoted in H. Torczyner, Magritte: Ideas and Images, New York, 1977, p. 176).
Most of the pictures Magritte painted under the title La voix du sang showed a tree in detail rather than in its entirety: they focussed on the trunk and its compartments. La voix du sang is one of a handful of works which show the tree fully, including an oil of 1948 and another of 1961; indeed, the landscape in the latter appears to relate to La voix du sang. Magritte returned to other variations upon the theme a number of times in the coming years. Indeed, in one picture from 1949, Un siècle de patience, he even showed a similar trunk in a tree that had shed its leaves. These variations revealed Magritte's fascination with this subject, as well as giving an intriguing indication of his working process as he explored different poetic permutations of subject matter.
While this picture is not dated, it relates to several other works that Magritte painted in the post-war years, especially in the 1940s and early 1960s. The idea of compartments within a tree had emerged in Magritte's 1935 painting, L'arbre savant. In 1947, a little over a decade later, this idea was transformed into the first painting entitled La voix du sang. To that picture, Magritte would dedicate the following poetic and mysterious lines in Titres, published the following year: 'The words dictated to us by the blood sometimes appear foreign to us. Here, it seems to want to command us to open up magic riches in the trees' (Magritte, quoted in D. Sylvester, ed., René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, vol. II, Oil Paintings and Objects, 1931-1948, London, 1993, p. 384). This hints at the key of comprehension that allows the viewer to perceive hidden truths within the trees. As Magritte himself said, 'The sphere and the house suggest enigmatic measurements to the tree' (Magritte in 1950, quoted in H. Torczyner, Magritte: Ideas and Images, New York, 1977, p. 176).
Most of the pictures Magritte painted under the title La voix du sang showed a tree in detail rather than in its entirety: they focussed on the trunk and its compartments. La voix du sang is one of a handful of works which show the tree fully, including an oil of 1948 and another of 1961; indeed, the landscape in the latter appears to relate to La voix du sang. Magritte returned to other variations upon the theme a number of times in the coming years. Indeed, in one picture from 1949, Un siècle de patience, he even showed a similar trunk in a tree that had shed its leaves. These variations revealed Magritte's fascination with this subject, as well as giving an intriguing indication of his working process as he explored different poetic permutations of subject matter.