Dada and Surrealism: Pan Ngai talks on Magritte's The false mirror, 1928.

Title: The False Mirror

Artist: René Magritte

Year: 1928

Medium: Painting

Material: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 54 x 80.9 cm

Location: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Copyright: © 2015 C. Herscovici, Brussels / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Surrealism is a school of art founded in France and prevailed from 1920 to 1930. It was developed from Dadaism. Surrealism shares some common features with Dada, for instance, both of them are not being rational and the productions of these two schools come from unconscious mind. However, there are some differences between them. Dada is much more about Anarchism and Nihilism, while Surrealism put more emphasis on dream reality and unconscious mind. According to Art, context and criticism, “Surrealism was Dada without the cynicism.”[1] That means Surrealism is a method of psychological satisfaction instead of product of Anarchism. Since Dadaism started after WWI, the war made people raise the conscious of change. Therefore, Dadaists were anti-tradition and anti-government. Surrealism came after Dadaism, people were experienced a catastrophic WWI and the conscious of change, it inevitably affected their psychology and had a burning desire of a new world. Surrealism is about unconscious mind and dream reality. Andre Breton, founder of Surrealism, wrote Manifeste Du Surréalisme and claimed that “ultimate goal of Surrealism is to remake the world in accordance with human imagination”[2]. Dream is uncontrollable and irrational, surrealists see it as an inspiration to create an ideal world and express their unconscious thought.

René Magritte is one of the major figures of Surrealism. He first started painting in 1915 and he was in the style of impressionism. Later on, he was inspired by Jean Metzinger and Giorgio de Chirico, started his surrealistic creation. Magritte had a tragic childhood, his mother committed suicide when he was a child. This incident affected his later creations. His artworks aroused the public interests after his death; it also influenced Pop Art a lot. People honored him as the most outstanding Belgian surrealist artist.

He was keen on combining two or more different and unrelated objects in a painting. This is a significant feature of surrealistic artwork which is called Synchronicity. Synchronicity helps people to recognize the shared unconscious structure of different cultures and trigger an unmediated response to imagery without going backwards on rational capabilities.[3] The False Mirror, which I am going to investigate in, is also a representative works of this technique.

The False Mirror was an early artwork of René Magritte which was in 1928. When I first saw this painting, it shocked me since the eye in the painting was unfamiliar with the normal eyes on our face. Also, it gave me a feeling of mystery. Since it seemed that there was no focal point in the eye and it was an extreme close-up of an eye, I felt intangible. And this is the reason of why I chose this painting to examine. After some researches of it, I found the fascinating part of it.

In the earlier stage of Magritte’s surrealistic creation, he loved putting different unrelated objects together to create a dream reality. That is the reason why Magritte painted The False Mirror in this way. A huge eyelashes-less eye whit blue sky and clouds in its eyeball and black in pupil was painted in a 54 x 80.9 cm canvas trough oil paint. It is a good example of Synchronicity. The two disparate components were juxtaposed together to create a new imagine. As Fred S. Kleiner wrote in Gardner’s art through the ages: The western perspective, “(The False Mirror) wreak havoc on the viewer's reliance on the conscious and rational”[4]. It means this kind of technique subverted people’s common sense and shocked the viewer as the new imagine is not sensible. But it effectively demonstrated the concept of unconscious. Magritte used different level of shades to present the distance between the white part of the eye and the eyeball. He painted the white part of the eye with a cooler white while used a softer and warmer white to paint the cloud. This combination made the eye could be taken as a window since the eyeball was replaced by a distant prospect. Since the distant prospect was appeared in the eye, I think it represents the world of Magritte’s insight. Surrealist artists used to juxtapose their dream and reality. I shared the same view with Mary Ann Caws, a distinguished Professor and author who is an expert in the field of literature and the arts. As she mentioned in Annenberg Learner[5], “So it’s both the dream and the real world, and it’s the way that the painter—all painters—project upon the world their own vision and their own dreams.”

This painting also was Magritte’s criticism of the society. The using of colors in the painting based on the true color of the object itself. For example, the sky is blue, the clouds are white, and the pupil is in the color of black. The scenery in the eye was so peaceful that it seemed to be no evil things on the world. Thus, this combination would lead people to think this painting is reflecting the reality. Nevertheless, since the name of this painting is The False Mirror, we can clearly know that this peaceful scenery is an illusion. The dream reality that the surrealist artists presented is an ideal world of them. People’s mind could escape from any rational control in dream so that the innocence part of human could be demonstrated directly. This echoes Kim’s viewing point that he mentioned in his book, “They (dreams) indicate the aspects of the mind free from rational control and the possibility of alternative form of logic and organization to those reigning over the waking world.”[6] As people’s mind is unfettered by the rational thinking and rules, it would be more likely to reflect the inner part of their thought and what people are seeking for. In another words, The False Mirror is trying to tell that what we see is actually reflecting our own thought, but not the real world.

Additionally, the pupil was in the color of black covered a little part of the scenery. No one would know what happened behind the small black dot. It aroused people’s curiosity and triggered the capability of association.

Next, it comes to the relevance between the title and the presentation. People may ask there is no mirror in the painting but why it would be named as The False Mirror? I think it is the fascinating part of Synchronicity. Synchronicity brings out a lot of imaginative power. The painting itself is a kind of creation. Meanwhile, the review of the audience is another kind of imagination. It would be a method to trigger the unconscious mind of people. Magritte thought that human eyes were mirrors, but it could only obtain the reflection of the nature instead of the nature itself. So, he thought there was nothing true, except people could subjectively feel it. In another words, all of the eyes are false mirrors. Therefore, this is the reason of why Magritte named this painting as The False Mirror.

After investigating in this painting, I come up a question. Why the eyeball is full of blue and cloudy sky instead of ground or grasslands. I think the major feature of sky is the answer – there is no limitation in sky. I think using sky to fill in the eyeball is trying to tell people that unconscious mind and dream are similar with sky, both of them are unlimited. Also, sky share the feature of freedom with dream, both of them are beyond control. Accordingly, it is sensible to have blue sky in the painting.

To sum up, dream reality is about unconscious mind, these are two main symbolic features of Surrealism. One of the methods to show unconscious mind is Synchronicity. The False Mirror demonstrated this technique effectively and it successfully represented Surrealism.  But one thing to be interesting is that many people try to analyze Magritte’s work and his motivation of painting. They may come up a lot of conclusions and deeper interpretations of Magritte and his work. But ironically, these surrealistic works should be unable to be analyzed. Magritte is the iconic figure of Surrealism; meanwhile, the significant feature of Surrealism is dream logic. Dreams are not rational to be understood. As Magritte said, “When one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, ‘what does that mean?’ It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.” [7]So, all of the analysis are only the reviewer’s unconscious mind aroused by the surrealist artists.

Reference List

-          John Kissick, Art, context and criticism (Boston, Mass. : McGraw Hill, c1996)

-          Kim Grant, Surrealism and the visual arts : theory and reception (Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005)

-          Fred S. Kleiner, Gardner’s art through the ages: The western perspective, 14^th edition , Vol. II(Boston, MA:Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2014)

-          Annenberg Learner - Teacher Professional Development(expert perspective on The False Mirror)

http://www.learner.org/courses/globalart/work/102/expert/1/index.html

-          About.com (Artists' Quotes: René Magritte)

http://arthistory.about.com/od/famous_names/a/Artists-Quotes-Ren-E-Magritte.htm

-          MoMA | Museum of Modern Art

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=78938

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[1] John Kissick, Art, context and criticism (Boston, Mass. : McGraw Hill, c1996), 419

[2] Kim Grant, Surrealism and the visual arts : theory and reception (Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005), 77

[3] John Kissick, Art, context and criticism (Boston, Mass. : McGraw Hill, c1996), 420-421

[4] Fred S. Kleiner, Gardner’s art through the ages: The western perspective, 14^th edition , Vol. II(Boston, MA:Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2014), 766

[5]Annenberg Learner - Teacher Professional Development(expert perspective on The False Mirror)

http://www.learner.org/courses/globalart/work/102/expert/1/index.html

[6] Kim Grant, Surrealism and the visual arts : theory and reception (Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005), 77

[7] About.com (Artists' Quotes: René Magritte)

http://arthistory.about.com/od/famous_names/a/Artists-Quotes-Ren-E-Magritte.htm