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What is The Meaning Behind The Lovers By Magritte?
Exploring the world beneath the famous painting and its successors (and predecessor)
Water and cloth. A woman walks to the Sambre River for the last time. Soon after, Magritte’s mother will be found dead by suicide, her face covered by her white gown. René was only 13.
It is thought that that memory came back to life when Magritte painted the Lovers with their faces covered by white cloth.
For those of us who don’t know, René Magritte was a philosopher, painter, advertiser. He was also the most prominent Surrealist from Belgium, and one of the most important even when considering the French surrealist movement. Inspired by psychology and De Chirico, Magritte paintings juxtapose strange objects and show them with precise accuracy, giving off an odd and unsettling sensation.
What’s real and what’s not? That should be the question you’re left with when viewing Magritte’s oeuvre. If you think you know better, then perhaps the likes of Magritte isn’t for you. Magritte’s works have long been esteemed for their ability to severe the signified from its signifier, compelling viewers to think more…abstractly, challenging the foundations of what we construe as “reality”.
