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拍品专文
Le sourire is a beautifully executed gouache by René Magritte. The work belongs to a series of ten gouaches the artist completed during the first ten weeks of 1960, in view of an exhibition held at the Galerie Rive Droite in Paris, from February to March that year. The show had been organised by Magritte's New York dealer Alexander Iolas, who had become the artist's exclusive agent in 1948, maintaining this position until the very end of the artist's life.
Following the principles of Magritte's most significant artistic production, Le sourire combines heightened realism with a paradoxical union of distant realities. Set against a dramatic sunset, a milestone rises to occupy most of the composition. Behind its battered stele, an empty plane seems to expand towards infinity, barely interrupted by some white mountains visible in the far horizon. Yet, the milestone's engraving does not seem to mark any land distance. The inscription, 'ANNO 192370' (year 192370), evokes instead a temporal dimension, stretching the limit of space into the infinite expanse of the future. Suddenly, time, an intangible entity, is brought into the measurable dimension of space; at the same time, space is dilated into an unbound dimension, with no limit or end.
In its subject, Le sourire revisits a composition Magritte had first explored in 1943, in an oil painting bearing the same title (D. Sylvester, S. Whitfield, René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, vol. II, London 1993, no. 532, p. 317). In that earlier work, Magritte had adopted a more naturalistic approach: the slate appears surrounded by an idyllic decadent setting made of wild grass and a few stone ruins. The painting, moreover, was executed with a vibrating technique of small, evocative brushstrokes. In the 1940s, Magritte had in fact rediscovered the Impressionists, moving away from the hallucinatory clarity of his earlier works to embark on a series of works that explored pastel colours and fragmented brushstrokes. Unprecedented in his career, Magritte's 'Impressionist' style is to be understood as a manifestation of the artist's reaction to the darkness of the Second World War. In 1945, looking back over the last few years, Magritte would explain in a letter: 'Since the beginning of this war, I have had a strong desire to achieve a new poetic effectiveness which would bring us both charm and pleasure. I leave to others the business of causing anxiety and terror and mixing everything up as before' (quoted in D. Sylvester, S. Whitfield, op. Cit., vol. II, p. 91). The imagery of the 1960s Le sourire had thus originated within that context of hopeful artistic endeavour. Representing an unconceivable, distant future as a wild meadow, the image may have appeared, in 1943, as a wishful dream of evasion from the pressing daily reality of war.
Compared to that earlier version, Le sourire seems to suggest that, in 1960, Magritte had returned to the theme with different intentions. The stark landscape and the apocalyptic sky depicted in the gouache marked a change in mood, affirming the artist's new take on an image he had first devised almost two decades earlier. In January 1960, just at the time when the artist was working on the series of gouaches to which Le sourire belongs, Magritte was awarded the Prix du Couronnement de Carrièere, an award aimed at 'crowning' the summit of an artist's life. In a letter to his dear friend Harry Torczyner, Magritte mused: 'As for "news" I have just been awarded a 150,000 franc prize by the State, which is desirous of "crowning" (sic!) my career. I shall, however, persist in feeling myself still perfectly capable of going on with said career - no better and no worse than in the past' (quoted in R. Magritte, Magritte Torczyner: Letters Between Friends, New York 1994, p. 51). In that same letter, as though to support his determination to continue his artistic development, Magritte also announced the upcoming exhibition at the Galerie Rive Droite, in which Le sourire would be exhibited. Further exploring an image the artist had first devised during the turbulent years of the Second World War, Le sourire ultimately attests to Magritte's intention to continue probing the possibilities of his universe. 'Since my career is far from over', he continued in that 1960 letter, 'I will then (following the exhibition) take up my brush once more, and on one of your future visits you will see how it is evolving' (ibid., p. 51).
Following the principles of Magritte's most significant artistic production, Le sourire combines heightened realism with a paradoxical union of distant realities. Set against a dramatic sunset, a milestone rises to occupy most of the composition. Behind its battered stele, an empty plane seems to expand towards infinity, barely interrupted by some white mountains visible in the far horizon. Yet, the milestone's engraving does not seem to mark any land distance. The inscription, 'ANNO 192370' (year 192370), evokes instead a temporal dimension, stretching the limit of space into the infinite expanse of the future. Suddenly, time, an intangible entity, is brought into the measurable dimension of space; at the same time, space is dilated into an unbound dimension, with no limit or end.
In its subject, Le sourire revisits a composition Magritte had first explored in 1943, in an oil painting bearing the same title (D. Sylvester, S. Whitfield, René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, vol. II, London 1993, no. 532, p. 317). In that earlier work, Magritte had adopted a more naturalistic approach: the slate appears surrounded by an idyllic decadent setting made of wild grass and a few stone ruins. The painting, moreover, was executed with a vibrating technique of small, evocative brushstrokes. In the 1940s, Magritte had in fact rediscovered the Impressionists, moving away from the hallucinatory clarity of his earlier works to embark on a series of works that explored pastel colours and fragmented brushstrokes. Unprecedented in his career, Magritte's 'Impressionist' style is to be understood as a manifestation of the artist's reaction to the darkness of the Second World War. In 1945, looking back over the last few years, Magritte would explain in a letter: 'Since the beginning of this war, I have had a strong desire to achieve a new poetic effectiveness which would bring us both charm and pleasure. I leave to others the business of causing anxiety and terror and mixing everything up as before' (quoted in D. Sylvester, S. Whitfield, op. Cit., vol. II, p. 91). The imagery of the 1960s Le sourire had thus originated within that context of hopeful artistic endeavour. Representing an unconceivable, distant future as a wild meadow, the image may have appeared, in 1943, as a wishful dream of evasion from the pressing daily reality of war.
Compared to that earlier version, Le sourire seems to suggest that, in 1960, Magritte had returned to the theme with different intentions. The stark landscape and the apocalyptic sky depicted in the gouache marked a change in mood, affirming the artist's new take on an image he had first devised almost two decades earlier. In January 1960, just at the time when the artist was working on the series of gouaches to which Le sourire belongs, Magritte was awarded the Prix du Couronnement de Carrièere, an award aimed at 'crowning' the summit of an artist's life. In a letter to his dear friend Harry Torczyner, Magritte mused: 'As for "news" I have just been awarded a 150,000 franc prize by the State, which is desirous of "crowning" (sic!) my career. I shall, however, persist in feeling myself still perfectly capable of going on with said career - no better and no worse than in the past' (quoted in R. Magritte, Magritte Torczyner: Letters Between Friends, New York 1994, p. 51). In that same letter, as though to support his determination to continue his artistic development, Magritte also announced the upcoming exhibition at the Galerie Rive Droite, in which Le sourire would be exhibited. Further exploring an image the artist had first devised during the turbulent years of the Second World War, Le sourire ultimately attests to Magritte's intention to continue probing the possibilities of his universe. 'Since my career is far from over', he continued in that 1960 letter, 'I will then (following the exhibition) take up my brush once more, and on one of your future visits you will see how it is evolving' (ibid., p. 51).