Yet another find at book repair. I was working on a book containing a comprehensive collection of Magritte's works as well as a bibliography, and discovered many new beautiful images. Unfortunately I was not able to find copies of most my favorites online, but since this particular piece is fairly well known it was readily available. It gives a good look into the style and feeling of Magritte as a painter, but its hard to see the whimsy that he is so good at capturing. I found that he was good at capturing moments, as well as making fun of those moments. This picture gives a beautiful example of his skill at capturing movement, the water seems to be awake and alive. One of my favorite things about
Magritte as an artist was his appreciation of women and their natural beauty. He had many busts and paintings of women and the female form, and I can't recall any of them that were stick figures wearing pounds of make-up. He used paintings of female forms without heads to represent the way in which our society can tend to see women as objects or items, rather than living, breathing, feeling, women. Any time an artist is able to capture and criticize an aspect of society that they disagree with, they have my respect. I admire most the artists who use their talent to not only create beautiful things, but to express their own beliefs and truths to others. Some are not able to express their views through words and ideas, and so they turn to other mediums and outlets. Magritte uses his skill as an artist to express his own sense of whimsy and beauty and truth, and I'm grateful that I have been able to see and hopefully understand something about him and his personality and beliefs.
