Rene Magritte

Rene Magritte is the most celebrated Belgian surrealist artist of the 20th century. He was born on November 21st, 1898 and was the eldest son of three. His hometown was Lessines, a french speaking part of Belgium. His family was ordinary family with a simple father who was small time businessman. Magritte’s later paintings are said to be fueled by experiences and images from his own childhood. When Magritte was a young boy a balloon had caught on the rooftop of his house. This same balloon can be seen in many of his pieces such as The Age of Enlightenment. At the age of eleven Magritte befriended a young girl and would explore with her at a cemetery of a country town. One day while playing with the little girl, Magritte saw an artist painting columns and trees. In that moment, Magritte was awestruck and saw art as magic.

At the age of twelve Magritte and his family moved from Lessines to Charleroi, an industrial town only thirty miles away from Brussels. Two years later, Magritte’s mother drowned herself in the near by river. It is said that Magritte was there when they found her body. Her face was enveloped in her nightdress which is the same image seen in many of Magritte’s artwork such as The Lovers. Later that year, Magritte met a young girl at a street fair named Georgette who would later become his wife. At eighteen years old, Magritte enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, capital of Belgium. Here he enrolled in conventional studio classes where he learned drawing, painting, and sculpturing. Magritte never felt inspired with the traditional artists and art styles as he studied there. He later decided to leave the school because he thought that it was a waste of time. In 1920, Magritte met Georgette again by chance in the Botanical Garden. They married two years later and would remain married for forty five years, until Magritte died in 1967. Later in life, Magritte said all the women he had ever painted was in the image and likeness of Georgette.

Before marrying Georgette, Magritte signed up for the infantry in 1921, and served in Leopoldsburg, Austria, and Antwerp. During his tour, Magritte was introduced to prints and posters of recent Italian futurist’s arts. When he returned from the tour he became obsessed with the freedom of style it offered and painted a whole series with the style. At the age of twenty four he ended up in financial trouble after his futurist art were not selling. To earn a living he started working at a wallpaper factory, painting flowers on wallpapers. Such flowers would later appear in his future work. While Margaritte worked at the factory, he discovered the work of Giorgio de Chirico, an Italian artist and founder of metaphysical art. Metaphysical art is an art style that is characterized by images conveying a sense of mystery and hallucination. Magritte felt as if he saw a mirror of