Books
Magritte: Attempting the Impossible
- Item Number
- 324
- Estimated Value
- 85 USD
- Sold
- 35 USD to candyjo1951
- Number of Bids
- 1 - Bid History
Item Description
The ongoing relevance of Belgian painter René Magritte may lie in the semiotic character of his work and its ability to create chasms between the world, its surfaces and the signs we use to occupy it. Magritte's paintings offer a space for the viewer to contemplate the emptiness of signs and to locate that emptiness in a world we recognize--indeed, the artist relies on the props of normalcy in order to upend, invert and collapse them into the terra incognita where life leaves off and art begins. "The mind loves the unknown," he avowed, "it loves images whose meaning is unknown, since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown." In Attempting the Impossible we have a new definitive Magritte monograph, replacing David Sylvester's volume of the early 1990s. Featuring more than 300 works, it contains much unpublished material and includes chapters covering Magritte's photography, drawings and influence on German and American contemporary art. Each chapter opens with a close reading of a key work--such as "The Treachery of Images" ("This is not a pipe") of 1928-29--and a reconstruction of its intellectual and historical contexts. Art historian Siegfried Gohr examines Magritte's marriage and friendships, the phases of his work (from his sunlit Renoir period and his "période vache" to his bright and visually arresting postwar work, which had such an influence on the advertising industry), the Belgian roots of his wit and sensibility and his word paintings and investigations into the paradoxes of representation.
FORMAT: Hbk, 10.5 x 13 in. / 336 pgs / 400 color.
ISBN: 9781933045931 / ISBN10: 1933045930
PUBLICATION DATE: 06/30/2009
Item Special Note
Solicited by: Avery Lozada
Friends Of The Manhattan School For Children Inc stores data...
Your support matters, so Friends Of The Manhattan School For Children Inc would like to use your information to keep in touch about things that may matter to you. If you choose to hear from Friends Of The Manhattan School For Children Inc, we may contact you in the future about our ongoing efforts.
Your privacy is important to us, so Friends Of The Manhattan School For Children Inc will keep your personal data secure and Friends Of The Manhattan School For Children Inc will not use it for marketing communications which you have not agreed to receive. At any time, you may withdraw consent by emailing Privacy@frontstream.com or by contacting our Privacy Officer. Please see our Privacy Policy found here PrivacyPolicy.
Top of the Rock