René Magritte: beyond painting

Allmer, Patricia (2009) René Magritte: beyond painting. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0719079283

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Abstract

"Rene Magritte: Beyond Painting" offers an extended engagement with a rethinking of Magritte's art from a position informed by contemporary developments in art theory. It is the first monograph to extensively analyse Magritte's art through employing a wide range of literary and philosophical/cultural theoretical frameworks. It offers close readings of specific images, paying attention to neglected aspects of Magritte's work, discussing the significance of cabinets of curiosities and encyclopaedias, trompe l'oeil, framing and forgeries. It addresses a range of intertextual relations between Magritte's work and that of other Surrealist artists and the art-historical tradition. This book explores how Magritte's art challenges conventional notions of originality, canonicity and coherence, revealing his work as being shaped by co-operations and co-options. It demonstrates that, far from being the surrealist artist familiar from book-covers and t-shirts, uncertainty, incoherence and negation lie at the core of Magritte's oeuvre.