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Lot Essay
Magritte began work on the large scale oil painting, Château des Pyrénées in February 1959 (fig. 1). In 1962 he painted a smaller gouache of the same subject (Sylvester 1514), replicating the stormy seas below the rock. And in 1964 he painted a third and final version of this subject matter, the present work. Haunting and mysterious, the picture depicts a large rock supporting an old castle, hovering this time above a calm and blue sea--a vista of endless daylight.
Magritte took the title for this triad of works from a novel by Anne Radcliffe, Les visions du Château des Pyrénées, of which he had a copy in his library. In a letter to his good friend Harry Torczyner dated 27 April 1964 Magritte commented, "Castle in the Pyrenees is a romantic 'Gothic' novel which has the charm and the faults of a rather extravagant literary school. You may be disappointed by the book when you read it, but delighted by the atmosphere it conjures up" (quoted in D. Sylvester, op. cit., vol. III, p. 313).
The genesis of the subject matter is in fact due to Harry Torczyner, who commissioned Magritte to paint this large-scale oil to cover up a window in his New York office. Participating directly in the iconography the picture would take, Torczyner wrote to Magritte:
What I would prefer would be to have it (the rock) floating above a dark and stormy sea like the North Sea of my youth, but in a bright daytime sky like that of the dominion of light, so that from the dark ocean we see rising this rock of hope crowned with its fortress-like castle (quoted in ibid., p. 312).
In discussing his own work, Magritte commented, "My paintings show objects deprived of the sense they usually have. They are shown in unusual contexts . . . Ordinary objects fascinate me. A door is a familiar object but at the same time it is a bizarre object, full of mystery . . . I suppose you can call me a surrealist. The word is all right. You have to use one word or another. But one should really say realism, although that usually refers to daily life in the street. It should be that realism means the real with the mystery that is in the real" (quoted in "The Enigmatic Visions of René Magritte", Life, 22 April 1966, pp. 113-119).
Notable for its unique imagery and delicate execution, the present gouache evokes a powerful sense of the sublimity and mystery of the universe. Magritte demonstrates that many curious and strange realities can coexist and that these wonders can be perceived if one looks through "the hole in the wall".
(fig. 1) René Magritte, Château des Pyrénées, 1959.
The Israel Museum, Tel Aviv.
Magritte took the title for this triad of works from a novel by Anne Radcliffe, Les visions du Château des Pyrénées, of which he had a copy in his library. In a letter to his good friend Harry Torczyner dated 27 April 1964 Magritte commented, "Castle in the Pyrenees is a romantic 'Gothic' novel which has the charm and the faults of a rather extravagant literary school. You may be disappointed by the book when you read it, but delighted by the atmosphere it conjures up" (quoted in D. Sylvester, op. cit., vol. III, p. 313).
The genesis of the subject matter is in fact due to Harry Torczyner, who commissioned Magritte to paint this large-scale oil to cover up a window in his New York office. Participating directly in the iconography the picture would take, Torczyner wrote to Magritte:
What I would prefer would be to have it (the rock) floating above a dark and stormy sea like the North Sea of my youth, but in a bright daytime sky like that of the dominion of light, so that from the dark ocean we see rising this rock of hope crowned with its fortress-like castle (quoted in ibid., p. 312).
In discussing his own work, Magritte commented, "My paintings show objects deprived of the sense they usually have. They are shown in unusual contexts . . . Ordinary objects fascinate me. A door is a familiar object but at the same time it is a bizarre object, full of mystery . . . I suppose you can call me a surrealist. The word is all right. You have to use one word or another. But one should really say realism, although that usually refers to daily life in the street. It should be that realism means the real with the mystery that is in the real" (quoted in "The Enigmatic Visions of René Magritte", Life, 22 April 1966, pp. 113-119).
Notable for its unique imagery and delicate execution, the present gouache evokes a powerful sense of the sublimity and mystery of the universe. Magritte demonstrates that many curious and strange realities can coexist and that these wonders can be perceived if one looks through "the hole in the wall".
(fig. 1) René Magritte, Château des Pyrénées, 1959.
The Israel Museum, Tel Aviv.