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Lot Essay
'It can happen that a portrait tries to resemble its model. However, one can hope that the model will try to resemble its portrait.' (Magritte, quoted by Louis Scutenaire, Magritte, 1943, reproduced in H. Torczyner, Magritte: Ideas and Images, trans. Richard Miller, New York, 1977, p. 194).
Arlette Magritte, the artist's niece and the model in this portrait, stares out at the viewer from her own corner of her uncle's Surreal universe. The composition of this painting conspires with the presence of some of the most universally recognised of the artist's motifs to provide a striking and original rendering of his relative. Arlette, placed at the bottom left, seems almost unbalanced in the frame of the work, somehow dislocated. Her location on the canvas echoes to some extent the paintings of Magritte's compatriot, Paul Delvaux and is all the more interesting for its inclusion of an almost topless young woman, a recurring feature in Devlaux's work. Magritte's decision to show Arlette only to the top of her shoulders lends her an air of proximity. Indeed, the intensity of Arlette's gaze approaches blatant confrontation of the viewer. This portrait is not merely a record of the sitter's looks, but manages also to capture her forthright youthful character.
Magritte limited his forays into portraiture to the minimum - friends, family and the occasional important or cherished patron. Although several early examples remain, from his entry into Surrealism his portraiture took a different shape, always maintaining the distinctive character of his other works. More than any other Surrealist artist, Magritte managed to explore the ramifications of portraiture on Surrealism and vice-versa although, as elsewhere in his work, it was seldom through stylization. It is clear that in Portrait d'Arlette Magritte, Magritte has painted the various constituent parts, including Arlette herself, with his usual degree of finesse and accuracy, as seen in the glass of water and the rose. It was rather through his 'Surreal' combination of quotidien elements that Magritte explored his artistic prerogative to give his viewer a sense of the mystery of the world, avoiding reliance on the lazy and limited perception of the empirical senses. This process was continued in his portraiture. In Portrait d'Arlette Magritte, one does not merely see a young woman juxtaposed with some random objects, nor do the objects hold any direct meaning regarding Arlette. They are intended merely to provoke a similar, albeit more intimate, ambience and sense of visual poetry as can be found in his other works. Magritte has placed Arlette among the universally recognised images of his iconographic pantheon and so created a highly personalised apotheosis of his young niece.
Arlette Magritte, the artist's niece and the model in this portrait, stares out at the viewer from her own corner of her uncle's Surreal universe. The composition of this painting conspires with the presence of some of the most universally recognised of the artist's motifs to provide a striking and original rendering of his relative. Arlette, placed at the bottom left, seems almost unbalanced in the frame of the work, somehow dislocated. Her location on the canvas echoes to some extent the paintings of Magritte's compatriot, Paul Delvaux and is all the more interesting for its inclusion of an almost topless young woman, a recurring feature in Devlaux's work. Magritte's decision to show Arlette only to the top of her shoulders lends her an air of proximity. Indeed, the intensity of Arlette's gaze approaches blatant confrontation of the viewer. This portrait is not merely a record of the sitter's looks, but manages also to capture her forthright youthful character.
Magritte limited his forays into portraiture to the minimum - friends, family and the occasional important or cherished patron. Although several early examples remain, from his entry into Surrealism his portraiture took a different shape, always maintaining the distinctive character of his other works. More than any other Surrealist artist, Magritte managed to explore the ramifications of portraiture on Surrealism and vice-versa although, as elsewhere in his work, it was seldom through stylization. It is clear that in Portrait d'Arlette Magritte, Magritte has painted the various constituent parts, including Arlette herself, with his usual degree of finesse and accuracy, as seen in the glass of water and the rose. It was rather through his 'Surreal' combination of quotidien elements that Magritte explored his artistic prerogative to give his viewer a sense of the mystery of the world, avoiding reliance on the lazy and limited perception of the empirical senses. This process was continued in his portraiture. In Portrait d'Arlette Magritte, one does not merely see a young woman juxtaposed with some random objects, nor do the objects hold any direct meaning regarding Arlette. They are intended merely to provoke a similar, albeit more intimate, ambience and sense of visual poetry as can be found in his other works. Magritte has placed Arlette among the universally recognised images of his iconographic pantheon and so created a highly personalised apotheosis of his young niece.