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They have flown from Barcelona to New York to visit an interesting exposition about René Magritte at MET.
They haven't been alone. Two Grandma's old friends, Thomas Crown and Catherine Banning are with them.
Together, they have spent a wonderful day and have enjoyed with this genius of Illusionism and Surrealism.
René François Ghislain Magritte (21 November 1898-15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist, who became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images.
Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality. His imagery has influenced pop art, minimalist art, and conceptual art.
René Magritte was born in Lessines, in the province of Hainaut, Belgium, in 1898. He was the oldest son of Léopold Magritte, a tailor and textile merchant, and Régina, who was a milliner before she got married. Little is known about Magritte's early life. He began lessons in drawing in 1910.
On 12 March 1912, his mother committed suicide by drowning herself in the River Sambre. This was not her first attempt at taking her own life; she had made many over a number of years, driving her husband Léopold to lock her in her bedroom. One day she escaped, and was missing for days. Her body was later discovered a mile or so down the nearby river.
According to a legend, 13-year-old Magritte was present when her body was retrieved from the water, but recent research has discredited this story, which may have originated with the family nurse. Supposedly, when his mother was found, her dress was covering her face, an image that has been suggested as the source of several of Magritte's paintings in 1927-1928 of people with cloth obscuring their faces, including Les Amants.
Magritte's earliest paintings, which date from about 1915, were Impressionistic in style. During 1916-1918, he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, under Constant Montald, but found the instruction uninspiring. He also took classes at the Académie Royale from the painter and poster designer Gisbert Combaz. The paintings he produced during 1918-1924 were influenced by Futurism and by the figurative Cubism of Metzinger.
Depressed by the failure, he moved to Paris where he became friends with André Breton and became involved in the Surrealist group. An illusionistic, dream-like quality is characteristic of Magritte's version of Surrealism. He became a leading member of the movement, and remained in Paris for three years.
In 1929 he exhibited at Goemans Gallery in Paris with Salvador Dalí, Jean Arp, de Chirico, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Picabia, Picasso and Yves Tanguy.
On 15 December 1929 he participated in the last publication of La Revolution Surrealiste No. 12, where he published his essay Les mots et les images, where words play with images in sync with his work The Treachery of Images.
In 1946, renouncing the violence and pessimism of his earlier work, he joined several other Belgian artists in signing the manifesto Surrealism in Full Sunlight.
During 1947-48, Magritte's Vache period, he painted in a provocative and crude Fauve style. During this time, Magritte supported himself through the production of fake Picassos, Braques, and de Chiricos -a fraudulent repertoire he was later to expand into the printing of forged banknotes during the lean postwar period.
Magritte's work frequently displays a collection of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things.
Magritte's use of simple graphic and everyday imagery has been compared to that of the pop artists. His influence in the development of pop art has been widely recognized, although Magritte himself discounted the connection.
More information: Rene Magritte
The Thomas Crown Affair is a 1999 American romantic heist film directed by John McTiernan, written by Leslie Dixon and Kurt Wimmer and is a remake of the 1968 film of the same name.
Its story follows Thomas Crown, a billionaire who steals a painting from an art gallery and is pursued by an insurance investigator with the two falling in love. It stars Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo, and Denis Leary.
Filming took place in several parts of New York City, including Central Park. The corporate headquarters of Lucent Technologies stood in for Crown's suite of offices.
Due to the impossibility of filming scenes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the producers' request was respectfully declined), the production crew made their own museum on a soundstage. Artisans were hired to create a realistic look to the set. Another scene was filmed in a different city landmark: the main research library of the New York Public Library.
More information: MoMA
It loves images whose meaning is unknown,
since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.
René Magritte
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