Rene Magritte Personal Values SoVA Assignment Part 2

Personalised Values, LeeSH, May 2012

I love the way the sketch looks so soft ~~ and the lines are so fine. I love mechanical pencils in that way.

Well doing what I do best in terms of art, and being most comfortable with this medium (having been drawing with pencil and paper for more than a decade (i sound so old) and in my toddler years very much disliking the crayons because they were so large and clumsy to my tiny untrained hands, thus having never ever touched them much again), I decided to do a pencil sketch...... (:

It's slightly smaller than A3 by the way. 375x278 mm. Some parts of the drawing got "chopped" off during their stay in the scanner. (The scanner because resolution on my camera is also way too high for an efficient upload.) Thank goodness I didn't do it on A3. But the essence is very well captured here so let's make do.

Like Magritte I have rendered some everyday objects realistically, scaling them to gargantuan sizes of different variations. Here's an introduction and some explanations.

I have depicted an imaginary room similar to Magritte's. However, the room is divided into two halves from the viewer's perspective by a huge book leaning against the wall. The half of the wall by which the bed sits is filled with stars and depicts a night sky, like a planetarium of a box. This carries dualistic implications. On one hand, this is a Surrealistic juxtaposition of morning and night, so the viewer is not clear which time of the day it is. Hence a comparison can be drawn between my sketch and another of Magritte's, Day and Night, where he painted a street night scene with the sky as daylight. A sense of disoriented calm is present in the painting, even as I sought to bring across the same atmosphere in mine.

Day and Night, Rene Magritte

On the other hand, this is like a statement on how nature always transits from one state to another. To support this visual statement, the order of the objects go in a circle. You can begin from one and carry on anti-clockwise or clockwise, but you will always end up where you started.  I realise that yet another connection can be drawn for this implication to Han Sai Por's sculpture Growth.

Han Sai Por, Growth

I read that Magritte, unlike most Surrealist artists, does not really attempt to bring across any deep underlying meaning in his artworks. Instead, he is more interested in the juxtaposition of unlikely objects. However, I relate to some things with feelings. Now let me explain the significance of these objects I have chosen which have 'value' to me.

Bottle. On a personal level, my want to depict this was derived from a fundamental need; I need water to drink. I have sketched out the water droplets clinging to the sides of the cylindrical bottle - aiming to capture the ephemeral essence and fragility of life. Thus there is a tension as the viewer knows the droplets might fall soon because of personal psychological expectations- yet it is only a lifeless piece of drawing. This is similar to the still tension I feel Magritte creates as he places his shaving brush precariously over the top of the armoire.

Bed. I must comment on this! Note the mussed up bed covers. First of all: If I am the owner of the room, of course the bed covers would be crumpled up because I would have to sleep on the bed. On a more serious note I understand that Magritte probably chose to leave the bed in his painting seemingly untouched to create an eerie feel; something that we expect to be there (such as crinkles on the bedsheet) is not there, providing an unnerving sense of loss in the viewer (my interpretation). For me, by right of personal choice (as it's Personalised Values), because it's supposed to be called Personal Values, I thought I should personalise it by making it more realistic in a larger sense of the word - as my usual artistic style is realistic. And realistically, the moment someone gets up from the bed he/she leaves behind some wrinkles on the bed sheets. This is to show the very existence of the anonymous owner of the room, which should be me, with only the wrinkles on the bed to allude to it.

Book. This represents the literature in my life. Right now, literature is almost non-existent in my life, pushed away to a sad secluded spot. But it used to be a really big thing for me. I would read every single day. Well, I still read everyday, but for 15 minutes etc. I really have no time for literature any more (to all avid readers: I highly recommend Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor. It's in English. Of course. But the title doesn't sound very elegant or nice or whatever, but it's a timeless masterpiece, that) Thus this is an expression of sorts of a regret that something that took such a big part of my life has now inevitably been reduced in measure of importance. Note the size of my regret.

Photographs. They mean much more than printed pixels on a glossy rectangle. Looking at a childhood photograph can trigger warm nostalgia - emotions and memories all at one go, something that makes us human. I found this to be true as I saw some old photographs my sister was flipping through in her spare time back in May. Hence I drew my sister and I as children (not an accurate depiction; I made the scene up) in the photograph lying on the ground in the room. Happy memories are kind of what I feed on sometimes (not all the time, as we can't always dwell in the past), and I think childhood was naturally a happy period of my life.

Pen. Now this soundlessly expresses a thousand words to me, but I think for the viewer it might just look like a pen. For me it visually expresses my love for writing (another regret here; I haven't wrote for a long while.....) and for drawing all at one go. (Killing two birds with one stone.) But naturally it's impossible to weigh which one I like better on the Value scale, so I embodied them into one object.

Toothbrush. This addresses health. I was looking at the question: How much do we value our health? Not that I'm preaching or anything, but these are sincerely just my thoughts: When it's there we don't realise how fortunate we are because for most of us, much of the time we are healthy. Only when the sicknesses come along the way, we begin to appreciate health, and other people around us like friends and family. Recently I became ill the weekend before the start of Term 3 week 1. My head was burning at 38 degrees C and I was lying in discomfort thinking. As I thought, I began to come to terms with how health really is a blessing I take for granted because I am healthy much of the time; it's become so normal for me. I also heard an account recently of a woman who, upon learning she was stricken with terminal illness, began only then to cherish her friends and family, spending more time with them, etc.

Eraser. (You can't see it very well as half of it got cropped off, although I tried my best to have it included as far as possible.) As we walk along this stretch of life, it is expected that mistakes will be made in this world of imperfections. Small and big ones. Sometimes after committing a mistake we may feel regretful, upset, and hurt inside - and we wish more than anything that these mistakes could be washed away and forgotten. In those times we wonder if there is a way. This eraser expresses my hope that mistakes can be erased and forgotten. And in a way, it is like a cyclic process - you travel through the various points of life, you accumulate the mistakes and you reach the eraser; you reach a point where you realise that you need to unburden your load. And because life isn't a smooth ride, the circle of objects were not arranged in a perfect circle, but a distorted vague circle.

Reptiles

Reptiles
Now the other day, glancing at the table
I saw from my place on the sofa
a reptile slithering
writhing
crawling
from the front to the back - everywhere
in a circle like a ring like in eternal continuum
(leave you guessing from where to where, and that's that)
with eyes as black as tar
like midnight dreams - so strange yet familiar
for were they not reptiles?
yet they came from out the paper
and back in

What else could it be?
but MC Escher's Reptiles.



And with that attempt at poetry (I tried), let's welcome Escher's masterpiece.

Reptiles is a lithograph of a realistic scene of a table, on which rests some every-day materials such as would exist in a study room or an office. Escher has juxtaposed reality with the impossible, and has pulled it off convincingly as far as the human eye can see, having employed a high degree of photorealism in his rendering of the objects. The fact that the artwork is monochromatic draws more attention to its mathematical attributes as there are less frivolous details (colour) to focus on. This use of mathematics incorporates a degree of professionalism in the work, reinforced by the nature of mathematics itself - a precise, intangible representation of nature, an intelligence only truly grasped and enjoyed by enlightened minds or those passionate enough to be determined to endure the furnace of wondering-what-they-are-doing-with-all-those-numbers.

Escher has used a balanced composition. A triangle, a visual perceptive notion on the part of the viewer formed from Escher's deliberate placing of reptiles in a specific alignment, sits in the middle of the composition. Escher has used the mathematical principle of tessellation, seen from his drawing of a drawing of 2-dimensional reptiles on a book lying on the table. The important sole element that enables this work to be classified as Surrealistic is the fact that 3-dimensional reptiles are emerging from the 2-dimensional page - a situation which would never be witnessed in real life. The reptiles crawl in the general shape of a triangle across the table and back again as mentioned earlier. This guides the viewer's eye around the work. Escher has used lithography, which gives the work an illusion of depth that really isn't there on the 2-d surface.

The work deals with some very intellectual subject matter. As the viewer follows the path of the triangle of reptiles, he/she would note that the reptiles crawl over a book, a triangular-shaped object and a docahedron (math again). Thus Escher has employed geometric shapes, not only tesselation, to direct eye movement about the work.

The work has a very eerie mood. As it has no colour, but is only in black and white, it has a dark sense to it. The atmosphere is still, created by the ordinary objects on the table. However, a mysterious element is infused where tessellated reptiles begin to come to life from the 2-d page to become 3-d living creatures. They are also crawling in a triangular shape, which makes the viewer wonder what is the significance of it, although Escher only intended to introduce a paradoxical concept rather than infuse meaning.

The work appears surreal because, firstly, of its juxtaposition of the impossible with the mundane or the ordinary - one of the classical characteristics of Surrealism. Secondly, its mathematical precision renders it as realistic, hence the image looks believable to the human eye on first glance - yet the heart knows something is not quite right. It is like an impossible paradox.

Reptiles can be compared to Personal Values, by Magritte. Both works are mathematically precise and realistically sound, which create a sense of Surrealism. Both works deal with the subject of illusion, of paradoxical concepts. Both deal with the notion of infinity.  Magritte's use of an armoire with mirrors reflecting parts of the room the viewer cannot see, together with his realistic depiction of the sky on the walls, reflect the exploration of limits, boundaries of which the viewer knows no bounds (infinity) as far as can be seen from the painting. Escher, too, explores the concept of infinity through the triangle of  geometric shapes (circles, triangular and rectangular planes in the form of potted plants, books and a ring) and the reptiles crawling across the triangular path in a circle of continuous motion which seems as though they can never cease.

However, Personal Values brings across a more subtle sense of Surrealism. The surrealistic influences in Escher's work are more obvious at first glance because of the stronger element of the impossible in the lithograph: the reptiles coming to life. Magritte's work, however, could pass of as a mere photorealistic depiction of a room with its walls painted like a sky with gigantically-manufactured objects in the room. Magritte's work deals with more personal objects as the focus, while Escher's work focuses on the reptiles crawling in a triangular formation. Thus, Magritte's work deals more with personal interpretation, reflection while Escher's work deals more with technical details and precision.

Personal Values could also be re-done by an artist (wonder who'll be the first - or if anyone has done it yet) as an installation. An artist who specialises in the stuff could rebuild a real room with similar objects as Magritte depicted. That would be really cool - paintings come to life. They could have a Surrealism exhibition where visitors can walk into Surrealistic paintings that were actually built. For depicting people in the paintings, these artists who will/might make such a kind of exhibition could do this:



Paint the people so they look realistic. Yes so going back to the idea I had on such an exhibition, it would be really exciting because then the scenes depicted in Surrealistic paintings would actually exist in reality (only in plaster, plasticine, digitally or whatever medium the artists might use to rebuild the paintings in real life). What I want to highlight is, both paintings are similar in that, given that such an exhibition was/will be held, these two paintings would be able to feature in the exhibition precisely because they are possible to make in real life given the right materials, although of course they can't really truly come to life. But they would be 3-dimensional, which would be awesome. Surrealism revived in sculptural form. I hope somebody does this soon! An established artist! I'll definitely go for the art exhibition. If it's in Singapore of course...

I found a really cute, creative dan  relevant video. Crossing my fingers really hard that no one else used this video yet...!!! This video was made by a guy called Sjoerd Lohuis. He "rewrote" the story of Reptiles, adding on to what Escher did, using stop-motion animation. Kay enough of words, let's get to the exciting part!



Awesome! I wonder if it was possible to manipulate Escher's lithograph digitally so the panels actually shift and move under the weight of the reptile as it crawls across? Although that would be tedious.. But more interesting.

Rene Magritte Personal Values SoVA assignment Part 1

"If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream." -Rene Magritte

Rene Magritte was a Surrealist artist whose works, which were distortions of reality, inevitably led us to question the true significance of dreams in our lives and which side of reality (or non-reality) we live in. He was interested in juxtaposing the most unlikely objects together - the most unnatural scenario - in the most natural way possible to confuse the viewer for a moment as to which was real and which was not.

In Personal Values (Les Valeurs Personelles), 1952, Magritte employs this fascination with reality and dreams. He has painted a room where only 3 of its walls are visible in our view. It appears as if we are in the room itself, because of the realistic way the room has been painted. Realistic clouds adorn the walls of the room, making it seem like the room is floating in the sky. To me, this feels like Magritte's visual metaphor for "The sky's the limit", puns intended. Firstly, to take the common terminology literally, the sky, which appears boundless to us as we gaze up at it any morning, is in the painting the very boundaries of the room (The negative connotation). This literally shows that the sky is the limit. Secondly, we could view it in a more positive light - the sky appears to be a different world in which you could step out into any moment. As this world is partly hidden from our view, and all we see is the sky, we know that there is more out there and hence there is no apparent limit of this second world to us. (This I think seems to be more like what the artist was trying to bring across.)

The painting reflects a formality (its seemingly untouched neatness) and commonality (its being a bedroom, and the fact that there are cracks in the ceiling which needs re-plastering) which makes it seem quite ordinary. The Surrealistic influence is kept subtle, not in-your-face like Dali. The viewer has to delve deeper into meaning and symbolism in order to fathom the Surrealistic motivations behind the painting.

This room is painted in a very realistic style, making it strangely unnerving; things which seem to be most normal are made to look unusually big. At the leftmost corner is a carefully made-up bed with hardly any creases on its covers, to the extent that it appears almost plastic, furthering the sense of formality in the painting. The room could reflect the personality of its occupant. Its careful formality could show that the occupant is trying to cover up his true personality.

A gigantic comb which rests on the bed is also leaning against the wall. Its translucent quality has been painted to absolute precision. The fact that it rests upon the bed draws reference to its affinity with the bed - one rests his head upon the pillow on the bed, and afterwards uses the comb to neaten his tousled hair. This could also allude to body image, outward appearance.

Next to the bed is an armoire which doors hold mirrors, subject matter popular with the Surrealists, often used to represent psychological space and the realm of fantasy. The mirrors offer a glimpse of oneself  - as they reflect light back at the viewer. If one moves in front of a mirror, he will see his reflection. The armoire is also in the far corner of the room.The carpet which has shifted towards the armoire on the right side of the room also acts as a pathway for eye movement towards the armoire. Thus the armoire could hint at deep, internal reflection on one's priorities, values, actions, words and thoughts. At the same time, the mirrors of the armoire could also be viewed as windows or doors to another place, offering relief from a stiffly formal and mundane existence, an idea similar to the concept in CS Lewis' literary work The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950).

Atop the armoire is a man's shaving brush. The way it is perched precariously atop the armoire brings about a sense of anticipation, a tension in the still room as the viewer feels as if the brush is about to fall off the armoire, as though the cool sense of equilibrium present in the room is about to be upset. This could mean that focusing too much on outward appearance (hinted at by the exaggerated scale of the shaving brush, which is used for personal grooming) may result in instability of inward character, as seen from how the shaving brush is above the mirrors of the armoire. In a way, the mirrors of the armoire also could possibly represent the "doors" into the "soul" (personality) of the owner of the room as it offers us a glimpse of the entire room if the viewer were in the painting and could move around the room.

In front of the armoire is a bar of soap.This could show a concern with personal grooming and hygiene. Magritte did say he is less concerned with the meanings of objects than with their unlikely relations to one another when placed side by side in his paintings. Could he have employed any deep implication with a bar of soap? I for one cannot fathom it, although it could allude to the oppressed state (the curvature of the soap, like a helmet of sorts) of some people who desire to break out of a mold - like if some people view them as unfortunate, or in any negative light, they desire the freedom for such stains to be washed away by the soap, to be free from the judgmental eyes of society. 

Beside the soap there is a wine glass about the same size as the bed. Its curvaceous surface could suggest a feminine presence in the room.

Left of the wineglass, a matchstick lies on the carpet, out of place. It doesn't help that the warmer bright colours of the matchstick lie against the deep cool earth colours of the carpet and clash. The explanation says that it was probably Magritte's visual pun on an erotic French phrase, which is quite discomfiting to be honest. And since that's rather inappropriate for something so easily accessible to a generation of innocent youngsters all hungry for information (you never know when some five-year-old might happen to chance on Magritte, kids these days, I saw babies using their parents' iPads at our AEP exhibition last year in TTSH), let's provide them with something more delectable. I would rather have my own interpretation, which you will see centers more on practicality. The matchstick reminds me of a campfire - of survival, of the essentials of living. The matchstick could represent the desire to live, to survive, in an uncertain, precarious world (hinted at by the shaving brush seemingly about to fall from its place on the top of the armoire). Note, also, that the matchstick is the only object which lies so stably in equilibrium. (I mean - touch the bar of soap and it would rock. And no one can disagree that the matchstick lying on its side is less easy to topple than the wine glass beside it. (Back to basics in Physics.) ) Thus, the matchstick could represent an inherent desire (it is tucked deeply into the warm colours of the carpet) in humans to live in a world which at times might appear surreal, given the unfavourable situations that sometimes befall us, such that we sometimes question: Is this real? Am I dreaming? But we pinch ourselves and we realise that this is in very deed cold hard reality, but nonetheless our question has blurred the line and we still wonder, in our hearts. For the passage in our minds - the psychological possibility - that this might only be a dream has been opened with those questions which so plague us at times of distress, grief and even joy. To substantiate my point - the sturdy matchstick might represent the lighting of hope, of a steadfast flame, that when the storms of life inevitably come to the rooms, the inner chambers of our beings, we yet choose as our personal values to be firm and to hope for a better future.Thus may Magritte be dealing with the inward toils of human nature, and the room an outward depiction of an internal perspective. How much more noble, than the crass and heedless visual remark.