Rene Magritte’s Les Belles Relations
Description
Rene Magritte’s Les Belles Relations is an oil on canvas artwork that perfectly realigns to the artiste’s surrealism when dealing with arts. The artwork depicts the isolated body parts, such as the lips, nose, and an eye, together with a hot-air balloon, all suspended in the sky. The sky is divided into two parts, the part of the sky that is at the horizon casts dusk-like orange color of a setting sun. Vertically, the sky casts a typical blue color with few clouds white clouds forming a cotton-like shape. On the ground, the picture of almost a lifeless area with no sign of humans showing up, save for the little flickering lights coming from supposed buildings in the vicinity.
Analysis
The depiction of the fragmentation of the body parts and the hot air balloon in the supposed juxtaposition of these bodies with the hot air balloon is a typical, bizarre aspect of the surrealist artwork that Magritte epitomized (Sothebys, n.d.). Though the different representation of colors in different parts of the artwork resonates with the real world, the juxtaposition of the selected body parts and the hot air balloon is far-fetched and could only reside on the subconscious and manifest through dreams. However, rather than using the elements to evoke an aspect of violence through mutilation, Magritte’s use of the elements in the artwork is reminiscent to the same way would isolate a given segment of an object and subsequently place it in an unfamiliar environment. However, Magritte achieves the sense of ambiguity and mystery when he combines different colors in the artwork and creating elements of oversized facial features against a cloud-filled sky, quiet environment, and unidentified landscape with little sign of life (Sothebys, n.d.). To a great extent, the representation of these images aligns with the surrealist depiction of different phenomena as the objects in the artwork and their existence can only be seen in a dream world derided by bizarreness or utopian world where imaginations of such aspects could be realized.
Work Cited
Sothebys. Rene Magritte’S Les Belles Relations. 1999, http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/impressionist-surrealist-art-evening-sal-l13003/lot.50.html Accessed 18 May 2020.