[Gallery Walk] A Strange and Unfamiliar World Escaping a Horrible Reality

'Rene Magritte Special Exhibition' Featuring Over 160 Works, Photos, and Multimedia Until Next Month 30
From the First Surrealist Work 'The Lost Rider' to 'Golconda' with Dozens of Bowler Hat Gentlemen
Significant Influence on Later Artists Like Beatles' Paul McCartney and Pink Floyd

'Ren? Magritte Special Exhibition' Exhibition View [Photo by GNC Media]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] Blue apples, bowler hats, pipes, umbrellas, canes. These images evoke the Belgian surrealist painter Ren? Magritte (1898?1967).

The 'Ren? Magritte Special Exhibition' opened on the 29th of last month at the Insa Central Museum in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Over 160 works, including Magritte's paintings, photographic works, and documentaries about Magritte, will be on display until the 30th of next month.

Magritte stimulates viewers' curiosity through a world of ingenious imagination. His representative works include 'The Treachery of Images (1929)', which depicts a pipe with the caption "This is not a pipe," 'The Lovers (1928)', showing lovers kissing with their faces covered by cloth, 'Golconda (1953)', featuring dozens of bowler-hatted gentlemen floating in the air, and 'The Son of Man (1964)', where a bowler-hatted man's face is obscured by a blue apple.

Magritte's paintings have inspired many later artists. Paul McCartney, a member of The Beatles, was an avid fan of Magritte. The logo of Apple Records, founded by The Beatles in 1958, was inspired by Magritte's blue apple painting. The British rock band Pink Floyd was also influenced by Magritte and used the image of a bowler-hatted man with his face erased on an album cover.

The scene in the movie 'The Matrix' where Agent Smith creates dozens of copies of himself simultaneously is inspired by the image of 'Golconda.'

Golconda, 1953, 81×100 cm, oil on canvas [Photo by GNC Media]

Novelist Kim Young-ha published the novel 'Empire of Light' in 2010, which is also the title of one of Magritte's paintings. The painting 'Empire of Light' is a series of 27 works completed by Magritte between 1949 and 1954. The cover photo of the novel 'Empire of Light' is one of Magritte's 'Empire of Light' series.

Swedish surrealist photographer Erik Johansson, who held a solo exhibition at the Seoul Arts Center last year, revealed at a press conference during his visit to Korea that among the three painters who inspired him the most, one was Magritte.

Surrealism is an artistic revolution that began in France and Belgium in the 1920s after World War I (1914?1918). It emerged as a reaction against reason and rationalism after experiencing the horrors of the war. Literally, it sought to escape the dreadful reality and pursue a new world. It expressed strange and unfamiliar worlds based on imagination.

Magritte disliked his works being interpreted through the lens of the unconscious or Sigmund Freud's (1856?1939) psychoanalytic theories. Therefore, his style differed from abstract art, which is difficult to understand what is being expressed.

At the entrance of the exhibition hall, visitors first encounter Magritte's abstract paintings from the 1920s. However, he believed that abstract images obscured his intentions. Thus, the 1926 work 'The Lost Jockey' draws attention. It is regarded as Magritte's first surrealist work. After painting 'The Lost Jockey,' he expressed satisfaction, saying, "I found my path."

Magritte sufficiently shows what he painted but places the subject in unfamiliar environments or combines it with incongruous objects to reveal a new world. He said, "A painting is a visible thought," and "I wanted people not just to see the painting but to think about it."

Ren? Magritte standing in front of the work 'The Pilgrim', 1967
Photo by GNC Media

Exploring Magritte's dramatic life is also a highlight of this exhibition. His mother, Regina Bertinchamps, committed suicide by jumping in 1912. When her body was lifted, her face was covered by clothes. This was a great shock to the young Magritte. It is speculated that this shock is reflected in paintings like 'The Lovers.'

One year after his mother's death, in 1913, Magritte met the girl of his destiny at a street festival. She was Georgette Berger, who later became Magritte's wife. The outbreak of World War I separated them, but seven years later, in 1920, they met again by chance at a botanical garden in Brussels, Belgium. Magritte married Berger in 1922. Berger remained Magritte's muse throughout her life. The woman who appears countless times in Magritte's paintings and photographs is none other than Berger.