Magritte And His Impacts On Contemporary Artists

Magritte and his Impacts on Contemporary Artists Name Institution Magritte and his Impacts on Contemporary Artists Fame is never easy to come. Whereas others have been able to realize instant fame from their teen years, some have had to go almost an entire lifetime before they become famous. Rene Magritte was one of those people that never found fame early on. Even though he is one of the most internationally acclaimed surrealist artists of all time, he only managed to gain fame in his 30s. In his description of his paintings, he asserted that they were visible images that concealed nothing. Instead, they evoked a mystery and led people to question what they meant. But he asserted that they meant nothing, for it was difficult to know what the mystery was about (Magritte et al., 2006). Throughout the years, several artists have sought inspiration from his work. In this paper, I am going to look at the impacts that his work had on artists such as Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, VijaCelmins, Robert Gober, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Joseph Kosuth, Ed Ruscha, and Andy Warhol. Some of the most important works by Rene Magritte As an artist, Rene Magritte painted several fine works. Over the years, he had always wanted to showcase an illustrative and restrained style. In 1925, he painted “The Bather”. The painting was able to show the modernist styles that were popular throughout Europe back then. The painting did influence the world of fashion to a great length. In 1928, Magritte painted “Familiar Objects” in which one is confronted with what looks like five men. Looking closely, the image appears to have five views of the same man. In classical Magritte fashion, they command more attention and appear to be unique. The painting served to show the growing interest of Magritte in surrealism. In 1929, Magritte painted “The Treachery of Images” which helped to show the gap that existed between language and meaning. Perhaps the most important feature about the painting is how Magritte combined the image and the words under it. One cannot ignore questioning how the words are important to the image (Hackler &Gunderman, 2015). But these were just some of the few works. There were other notable works such as “The Lovers”, “The Son of Man”, “The Menaced Assassin”, “The False Mirror”, “Golconda”, “Time Transfixed”, and “The Listening Room” among others. The Impacts of Rene Magritte on Contemporary Artists Rene was known to be a painter of fireplaces, hammers, apples, and hats. Magritte was always critical of consumerism, and he was also fascinated by it. This is one trait that Andy Warhol had shared with Magritte. When Magritte finished the painting “Treachery of images”, he raised several eyebrows and propelled conceptual art movement. The painting by Magritte has been cited by Jasper Johns and John Balderassi as one that greatly inspired them. Today, these artists play with images and words, but it was started by Magritte. The artists have adopted a trick of questioning what seems obvious and separating their representations of what they represent. In his painting of “Three flags”, John Jasper followed the concepts that were used by Magritte.John Jasper had long been interested in the paintings of Magritte from the very first time he saw “The Treachery of Images” in 1954. He was so impressed that he decided to purchase some of the works. Magritte had a “philosophical-conceptual” approach to language and images that influenced the artists that came to prominence in post-war period. Aside from Jasper Johns, several other artists such as Ed Ruscha and VijaCelmins looked to Magritte for inspiration. Jasper John had the pleasure of meeting with Magritte in person in 1965. In the works of both artists, they had a knack of depicting their paintings in ways that no one expected; forcing those that were observing to rethink what should have been apparently evident (Ravenal, 2016). Following in the footsteps of Magritte, Jasper Johns would normally use things that never merit close observation. In fact, most of the things he used were easy to overlook. Jasper Johns is not only known for his paintings of flags, but also of digits and canvas works that had real objects. The technique has made Jasper to be compared with Magritte on most occasions, although he never made any direct reference to the works of Magritte. Even if Magritte inspired Jasper so much, he has never cited him as a role model. The two artists focused on the relationship between language and image, but there is a difference in the way they use texts. Whereas Magritte uses text to confuse the observer, Jasper Johns uses texts to substantiate the authenticity of his images (Karaali, 2016). Vija Celmins is known for her monochrome, objective, and meticulous sketches and paintings. In the 1960s, she developed a passion for the way the paintings of Magritte were still and immobile. In addition, she loved the way the image motifs of Magritte’s paintings were unsettling. In some of her works, she has made direct reference to Magritte. Magritte’s work “Personal Values” was crucial to Celmins in 1970 when she did “Comb” (Baker, 2007). Celmins has also shown interest in the way Magritte juxtapositions the imaginary and the real. She has often believed that Magritte had several ideas about the imaginary and the real and illustrated them in a clever manner (Simms, 2015). Just as Magritte asserted that things in paintings were never real, Celmins made it clear in her works that things people see in the paintings were never real. This was evident in her sketch of “Cloud with Wire” in 1969. In the painting, there is a sky with a wire that seems to contrast it, casting a shadow on the sky. The point here is that was only an illusion, an image. Ed Ruscha is another artist who was inspired by Magritte. There have been suggestions that hi...