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Wednesday, July 11, 2007
The Lovers by Magritte
This painting by Rene Magritte entitled "The Lovers," hangs in the Museum of Modern Art.
Whaddya' think?
12 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Hmmm... strangly disturbing. It reminds me that many marriages/relationships today are carried out without the individuals really knowing each other deeply. They go through the motions of physical love without real intimacy. Or...it could analogize those who want physical intimacy without committment -- they want a "faceless" relationship which is only superficial and involves no expectation of responsibility towards the other. How's that for a 2-cent art critique? yeek!
Oh, I have to say one more that just occurred to me (I love symbolism, can you tell?). This painting also reminds me that we don't really know each other. Even lovers who think they know and understand their partner at eh deepest level don't really know the "real" person underneath. We all have a side which is hidden to everyone but God. Only God truly knows our hearts! Cool!
What would we do without "modern art"? Why do many artists today feel the need to make some sort of profound statement (or non-statement) about post-modern life? What ever happened to beauty for the sake of being beautiful? Has that well been drained dry? My questions are somewhat retorical, but curious to me nonetheless. Jen's comments are spot-on.
I would say that "modern" art expresses in a way that makes the observer react in a way that creates numerous interpretations rather than the art that comes before it that would show beauty for beauty's sake. The modern artist would seem to deem it a success if he or she was either misunderstood or had numerous people get various things from his work. It would go with the post-modernity mindset that nothing is certain or true or heaven forbid that an artist would have a specific idea in mind that he or she wished to communicate when creating such art.
And I concur, jennifer--agree with your assessment.
zach--actually I didn't even notice the spelling thing--I actually said "haha" to me replying to the question (since folks often reply to something that is rhetorical).
Chris--I'm all for untieing, 'cause if we're separate, then we'd be apart (I think I just made up a Yogi Berra-ism).
i think this painting is so deep and it shows so much emotion and the masks that people wear as they go trew their life, i cant really describe how it makes me feel, the colours that have been used i think show how the artist is really feeling inside and how she tries to express that into the art. i think allthough there are two people in the painting, it is very solitary and isolated, it really gets inside your head.
I was first shown this picture by my Literature professor and I was completely speechless. The painting is hauntingly beautiful, yet gorgeously disturbing. This painting makes me want to cry in fear and applaud with amazement. I think this painting is really disturbing because we can't see their "humanistic" traits; their face. It's like if you have ever gone to a Cadaver lab, they cover the faces and hands. So, it's like the Lovers really aren't humans. Although, it's disturbing, it's also thought provoking. It makes one think what really is human. Is human physical traits? Is human love? What really is human?
you're all wrong. his mother drowned herself in a river therefore he always puts cloths and apples and birds onfront of peoples faces, much like how the dress wrapped around his drowning mother.
Rene Magritte's mum drowned her self in a river in the middle of the night, and when she was found her nightdress was wrapped around her head leaving the rest of her body naked, however it is unclear if the nightdress wrapped it's self around her head in the water or if she purposly covered her head so that she could not see her death awaiting her. So Rene used her as an insperation in his surrealism paintings which is why in a lot of pictures he has cloth wrapped around the characters heads and/or they are naked. It's rather sad and quite disturbing
There is a proper relationship between the two lovers. The veil does not impede this relationship. Rather, what is masked (impeded) are the lovers, ie. that which the relationship relates. The relationship is visible. The lovers are not. This is a work which seeks a location outside the subjectivity of the lovers and constituted in the relationship between them. It is an a-subjective sensibility. This does not mean it is objective. it elludes both, becoming a proper image rather than a representation of some invisible.
12 comments:
Hmmm... strangly disturbing. It reminds me that many marriages/relationships today are carried out without the individuals really knowing each other deeply. They go through the motions of physical love without real intimacy. Or...it could analogize those who want physical intimacy without committment -- they want a "faceless" relationship which is only superficial and involves no expectation of responsibility towards the other. How's that for a 2-cent art critique? yeek!
-Jennifer
Oh, I have to say one more that just occurred to me (I love symbolism, can you tell?). This painting also reminds me that we don't really know each other. Even lovers who think they know and understand their partner at eh deepest level don't really know the "real" person underneath. We all have a side which is hidden to everyone but God. Only God truly knows our hearts! Cool!
-Jen
What would we do without "modern art"? Why do many artists today feel the need to make some sort of profound statement (or non-statement) about post-modern life? What ever happened to beauty for the sake of being beautiful? Has that well been drained dry? My questions are somewhat retorical, but curious to me nonetheless. Jen's comments are spot-on.
Zach,
(to respond to the rhetorical-haha)
I would say that "modern" art expresses in a way that makes the observer react in a way that creates numerous interpretations rather than the art that comes before it that would show beauty for beauty's sake. The modern artist would seem to deem it a success if he or she was either misunderstood or had numerous people get various things from his work. It would go with the post-modernity mindset that nothing is certain or true or heaven forbid that an artist would have a specific idea in mind that he or she wished to communicate when creating such art.
And I concur, jennifer--agree with your assessment.
Dan, that's what spell-check is for. -Chris, I need spel-chek on your blog!!!
Spellcheckers of the world...UNTIE!
zach--actually I didn't even notice the spelling thing--I actually said "haha" to me replying to the question (since folks often reply to something that is rhetorical).
Chris--I'm all for untieing, 'cause if we're separate, then we'd be apart (I think I just made up a Yogi Berra-ism).
i think this painting is so deep and it shows so much emotion and the masks that people wear as they go trew their life, i cant really describe how it makes me feel, the colours that have been used i think show how the artist is really feeling inside and how she tries to express that into the art. i think allthough there are two people in the painting, it is very solitary and isolated, it really gets inside your head.
I was first shown this picture by my Literature professor and I was completely speechless. The painting is hauntingly beautiful, yet gorgeously disturbing. This painting makes me want to cry in fear and applaud with amazement. I think this painting is really disturbing because we can't see their "humanistic" traits; their face. It's like if you have ever gone to a Cadaver lab, they cover the faces and hands. So, it's like the Lovers really aren't humans. Although, it's disturbing, it's also thought provoking. It makes one think what really is human. Is human physical traits? Is human love? What really is human?
you're all wrong. his mother drowned herself in a river therefore he always puts cloths and apples and birds onfront of peoples faces, much like how the dress wrapped around his drowning mother.
Rene Magritte's mum drowned her self in a river in the middle of the night, and when she was found her nightdress was wrapped around her head leaving the rest of her body naked, however it is unclear if the nightdress wrapped it's self around her head in the water or if she purposly covered her head so that she could not see her death awaiting her. So Rene used her as an insperation in his surrealism paintings which is why in a lot of pictures he has cloth wrapped around the characters heads and/or they are naked.
It's rather sad and quite disturbing
There is a proper relationship between the two lovers. The veil does not impede this relationship. Rather, what is masked (impeded) are the lovers, ie. that which the relationship relates. The relationship is visible. The lovers are not. This is a work which seeks a location outside the subjectivity of the lovers and constituted in the relationship between them. It is an a-subjective sensibility. This does not mean it is objective. it elludes both, becoming a proper image rather than a representation of some invisible.
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