The Culture Enthusiast

Surrealist painter René Magritte once wrote in a letter to André Bosmans that: 

“All the abstract paintings reveal only abstract painting, and absolutely nothing else. (…) I cannot share an interest in what abstract painting is able to say, which was summed up once and for all by the first abstract painting.”1

Well, if it isn't the pot calling the kettle black...

I partly agree with his dissatisfaction with abstract paintings because, in general, I don't like them very much. (Exceptions made to Jackson Pollock and maybe Cy Twombly).

But it’s funny how Magritte dismiss abstract paintings, since his paintings are somewhat abstract themselves. Not in the sense that they are not figurative, because they are. 

More in the sense that they are so mysterious and enigmatic. His paintings, though not abstract per se, look more like abstract ideas than figurative paintings.

Personal Values by Rene Magritte, 1952

Do you remember his random explanation for one of his paintings? 

I bet he thought his works are able "to say" many things, but I know for a fact that for many people they are baffling and unintelligible. It might be easier to understand and like Jackson Pollock's paintings than Magritte's. 

How do you fell about Abstract Art?

Source: “Magritte: the true art of painting.” By Harry Torczyner

“What I paint is addressed to those who “live” in the present, or rather, for it… An artist who paints for posterity has an intention that I do not have. In my opinion, he is doing something idiots understand very well – those who do not concern “living” men. The man who seems to be alive, whom one refers to as “alive”, is an enigmatic reality that need not be lent a meaning that would interpret that reality as one that is concerned with posterity.” 

Letter from René Magritte to Louis Scutenaire, February 24, 1955[1]

Wagner has a similar quote on working for the present:

“I have felt the pulse of modern art and know that it will die! This knowledge, however, fills me not with despondency but with joy, for I know at the same time that it is not art in general which will perish but only our own particular type of art—which stands remote from modern life—, whereas true—imperishable—constantly renewed art is still to be born. The monumental character of our art will disappear, we shall abandon our habit of clinging firmly to the past, our egotistical concern for permanence and immortality at any price: we shall let the past remain the past, the future—the future, and we shall live only in the present, in the here and now, and create works for the present age alone.”[2]

Magritte’s ideas continue to baffle me. Now, I don’t actually think that an artist needs to aim for posterity.  There’s nothing wrong with painting for the present, but after that, you might no longer be relevant.

I’m no artist, but I would dread that this happened to me. As a matter of fact, it’s like what the guy from Gladiator said: what we do in life echoes in the eternity. If you aim for greatness it will count, whether you achieve it or not. If you aim for the present – it will also count - badly.

Why?

Because what these artist are not saying is that making works that will last years, centuries, millenniums is hard. It is actually extremely hard to have enough talent, creativity, ambition and faith (not to say guts!) to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Doing all this without encouragement from art critics, art dealers and the media is even harder. It’s also quite difficult to be able to make a sculpture as marvelous as the Pietá when you are only 24 years old.

What’s implied in this contempt for immortality is that it’s much easier to cater for today’s fashions, ideologies and caprices. Besides, if you are living in a time that what matters most is to be original, shocking, subversive and revolutionary – the better!

The word obsolete is used a lot in technology but I think it might be useful here. Do you know when movies get old and the technology in them gets obsolete? Take the movie Vacation for example. The family’s computer is huge and has no screen, so it’s connected to the Tv and to the boy’s videogame. We see these objects now and we laugh and make fun of them. But they weren’t funny in the late 80’s.

However, you can still watch Vacation and find it funny because its premise is not specific of a certain time. The humor they get out of the horrors of family vacations is pretty much the same in the late 80’s and now. What’s specific from this decade (the computer and videogame) doesn’t affect the movie so much because it’s merely a detail.

Now, Wagner and Magritte were doing art - something light years away from Chevy Chase’s antics (which I love, by the way). So how come they seem less concerned than Chevy about making their works last?

How do you interpret Wagner’s and Magritte’s quotes? Is despising immortality valid?

"My latest picture began with the question: how to paint a picture with a glass of water as the subject? I drew a number of glasses of water, a line always appeared in these drawings. Then this line became deformed and took the form of an umbrella. Then this umbrella was put into the glass, and finally the umbrella opened up and was placed under the glass of water. Which I feel answers the initial question. The picture so conceived is called Les vacances de Hegel. I think Hegel would have liked this object that has two contrary functions: to repel and to contain water. Wouldn’t that have amused him as we are amused when on vacation?"

René Magritte in a letter to Maurice Rapin dated May 1958

Source: "Magritte: the true art of painting" by Harry Torczyner

Magritte’s letter proves rather useful to explain the intentions behind his painting “Hegel’s Vacation”. Before reading this letter, the painting was rather baffling to me. But his “explanation” makes the painting seems like a puzzle or a guessing game. The painting only makes sense after it is explained to us.

Besides, the motives sound random and subjective – only relevant and meaningful to the artist. I confess: I would never guess the intention was to paint a glass of water as a subject. Actually, I might haven’t guessed anything at all.

This feeling of “not getting it” is also there when we observe most of modern and contemporary art. Seriously, I feel like one of the judges from Project Runway asking the painter to give fewer explanations. “Let the painting speak for itself!”

How do you feel about the painting in question? Is it possible to like it without any explanation?