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拍品專文
Dating to the first half of 1955, Le lieu-dit is a powerful illustration of René Magritte’s iconic painterly style during the mature period of his career, as he challenged and tested the boundaries of his viewers’ expectations and imaginations. Following the end of the Second World War, the artist had returned to a more precise mode of painting, and began to re-examine certain motifs, subjects and ideas that he felt remained ripe for further exploration, resulting in new variations and evolutions of earlier concepts and compositions. Magritte clearly felt that the present work was a highly successful example of this new approach, and chose to reproduce it almost immediately upon its completion in La carte d’après nature, the Surrealist review he had founded several years prior and published sporadically through the following decade. Across the twelve issues and two special editions, the review featured poetry and hand-coloured illustrations, short stories and Surrealist questionnaires, with contributions from the artist’s circle of close friends in Brussels, and variously appeared in the form of a simple postcard or a small booklet. Le lieu-dit was included in issue no. 9, and illustrated Magritte’s renewed fascination with an intriguing leitmotif that had first emerged in his work almost two decades prior – the majestic form of an eagle-shaped mountain.
A mysterious and unexpected landmark within a range of picturesque peaks, the eagle-mountain had initially appeared in 1937 in a pair of paintings titled Le précurseur (Sylvester, no. 417 and 418; 1936), and may have been partially inspired by a colour photograph featured on a travel brochure that Magritte had found and saved among his papers. A year later, Magritte solidified the subject in his now iconic Le domaine d’Arnheim (Sylvester, no. 456; Private collection), which invoked the writings of Edgar Allen Poe and played with the contrast and connection between a simple still life of eggs in the foreground and the grandeur of the eagle-shaped promontory in the distance. In Le lieu-dit, Magritte’s imagination moves in another direction, expanding on the central concept of Le domaine d’Arnheim and combining it with memories of alchemical imagery and his recent explorations on the theme of petrification, to create a beguiling, poetic image.
Here, the romantic grandeur of this magical scenery is accentuated by the nocturnal setting, the rocky mountain range cast in deep shadow as the sky darkens overhead and nighttime falls. In the foreground, the rippling flames of a blazing fire lick upwards into the air, its vivid energy and vibrant hue offering a stark contrast to the subtly variegated grisaille palette that characterises the rest of the landscape. There is an intense silence to the scene, the mystery of the situation heightened by the lack of a human presence around the camp fire. Despite the power of the flames, which casts a warm glow upon the surrounding ground, the eagle-mountain remains in darkness, suggesting there is a great distance between the viewer and the peaks, the cliff-edge visible beyond the fire perhaps indicating the presence of a deep canyon or gorge just out of view. As such, the profile of the bird in Le lieu-dit appears as if it may be a trick of the light, an illusion conjured by the flickering flames or tired eyes gazing into the shadowy darkness, that should right itself upon a second glance.
Magritte explored the connection between the blazing campfire and the rock-eagle in two other paintings from this period – Les fanatiques (Sylvester, no. 823; Private collection) and Le coup d’épaule (Sylvester, no. 847 ; Private collection) – and together, the trio of compositions appear to conjure a dream-like sequence of interconnected imagery. In Le lieu-dit, the mountain-eagle appears immobile, firmly rooted in its surrounding landscape, before breaking free and taking flight in Les fanatiques, circling low over the flames, and then landing alongside the fire in Le coup d’épaule, drawn to its warm, vibrant glow. In this way, the eagle is at once animated and petrified, an enormous, weighty creature made of stone and rock, yet still capable of flight, a seemingly impossible congruence that challenges the fundamental laws of physics.
Le lieu-dit was included in Magritte’s one-man show at Christian and Yvonne Zervos’s Galerie Cahiers d’Art in Paris, which opened to the public in December 1955. Ten examples of the artist’s most recent work in oil were arranged alongside ten gouaches within the tiny gallery, and a special feature on the artist was published in Cahiers d’Art – ‘En parlant un peu de Magritte,’ written by Louis Scutenaire. Though the show was a critical success, none of the works sold to Parisian collectors, and Le lieu-dit subsequently made its way across the Atlantic, where it was acquired by the Chicago-based collectors Edwin and Lindy Bergman. The Bergmans had been inspired by an art class they took together at The University of Chicago in the 1950s, and went onto become passionate collectors of Surrealism and contemporary art, building close relationships with a number of artists, curators and key dealers. Sharing a keen dedication to their home-city, the Bergmans were essential to the founding of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and would go on to gift a large portion of their collection of Surrealist art to The Art Institute of Chicago in the early 1990s. Le lieu-dit was purchased by the Bergmans from Magritte’s American dealer, the legendary Alexander Iolas, and remained with them for several years, before being acquired by the Vanthournouts in 1969.
A mysterious and unexpected landmark within a range of picturesque peaks, the eagle-mountain had initially appeared in 1937 in a pair of paintings titled Le précurseur (Sylvester, no. 417 and 418; 1936), and may have been partially inspired by a colour photograph featured on a travel brochure that Magritte had found and saved among his papers. A year later, Magritte solidified the subject in his now iconic Le domaine d’Arnheim (Sylvester, no. 456; Private collection), which invoked the writings of Edgar Allen Poe and played with the contrast and connection between a simple still life of eggs in the foreground and the grandeur of the eagle-shaped promontory in the distance. In Le lieu-dit, Magritte’s imagination moves in another direction, expanding on the central concept of Le domaine d’Arnheim and combining it with memories of alchemical imagery and his recent explorations on the theme of petrification, to create a beguiling, poetic image.
Here, the romantic grandeur of this magical scenery is accentuated by the nocturnal setting, the rocky mountain range cast in deep shadow as the sky darkens overhead and nighttime falls. In the foreground, the rippling flames of a blazing fire lick upwards into the air, its vivid energy and vibrant hue offering a stark contrast to the subtly variegated grisaille palette that characterises the rest of the landscape. There is an intense silence to the scene, the mystery of the situation heightened by the lack of a human presence around the camp fire. Despite the power of the flames, which casts a warm glow upon the surrounding ground, the eagle-mountain remains in darkness, suggesting there is a great distance between the viewer and the peaks, the cliff-edge visible beyond the fire perhaps indicating the presence of a deep canyon or gorge just out of view. As such, the profile of the bird in Le lieu-dit appears as if it may be a trick of the light, an illusion conjured by the flickering flames or tired eyes gazing into the shadowy darkness, that should right itself upon a second glance.
Magritte explored the connection between the blazing campfire and the rock-eagle in two other paintings from this period – Les fanatiques (Sylvester, no. 823; Private collection) and Le coup d’épaule (Sylvester, no. 847 ; Private collection) – and together, the trio of compositions appear to conjure a dream-like sequence of interconnected imagery. In Le lieu-dit, the mountain-eagle appears immobile, firmly rooted in its surrounding landscape, before breaking free and taking flight in Les fanatiques, circling low over the flames, and then landing alongside the fire in Le coup d’épaule, drawn to its warm, vibrant glow. In this way, the eagle is at once animated and petrified, an enormous, weighty creature made of stone and rock, yet still capable of flight, a seemingly impossible congruence that challenges the fundamental laws of physics.
Le lieu-dit was included in Magritte’s one-man show at Christian and Yvonne Zervos’s Galerie Cahiers d’Art in Paris, which opened to the public in December 1955. Ten examples of the artist’s most recent work in oil were arranged alongside ten gouaches within the tiny gallery, and a special feature on the artist was published in Cahiers d’Art – ‘En parlant un peu de Magritte,’ written by Louis Scutenaire. Though the show was a critical success, none of the works sold to Parisian collectors, and Le lieu-dit subsequently made its way across the Atlantic, where it was acquired by the Chicago-based collectors Edwin and Lindy Bergman. The Bergmans had been inspired by an art class they took together at The University of Chicago in the 1950s, and went onto become passionate collectors of Surrealism and contemporary art, building close relationships with a number of artists, curators and key dealers. Sharing a keen dedication to their home-city, the Bergmans were essential to the founding of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and would go on to gift a large portion of their collection of Surrealist art to The Art Institute of Chicago in the early 1990s. Le lieu-dit was purchased by the Bergmans from Magritte’s American dealer, the legendary Alexander Iolas, and remained with them for several years, before being acquired by the Vanthournouts in 1969.