Rene Magritte

by Paige G.

Rene Magritte was born on the 21st of November, 1898 in Hainaut, Belgium, where his father was a tailor and a merchant. He lost his mother very tragically when she commited suicide for unknown reasons. He was only fourteen. After Magritte had gone to art school, he worked at a wallpaper factory as a poster and advertisement designer until 1926. Finally Magrittes created his first painting, The Lost Jockey, which was abused by critics the very first day in his exibition. After this failure, he moved to Brussels to work on advertisement again. After a while, his paintings became more popular. After a while, Rene met a special girl who first modeled for him, then became his wife. The way that Rene Magritte painted showed a juxtapostion of ordinary objects in a different context. This means giving a whole new meaning to a familar thing. His painting, The Treachery of Images, is an example of this. This painting shows a pope that looks like a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Below the painting it said. "This is not a pipe". This is actually true: The painting is not a pipe, it is an image of a pipe. During the 1940's the artist experimented with different types of style for his art, but ended up going back to his old style. Rene Magritte, a surrielest painter, died of pancreatic cancer on the date of August 15th, 1967.