Interesting how in trying to produce paintings devoid of style, Magritte inadvertently established one of the most iconic and memorable painting aesthetics. Great video.
Hmm…. It’s almost as if it is an argument against Plato. “The prohibited reproduction” The title alone evokes rebellion. We cannot see the back of our heads and the only way we ever could is with a reproduction, like the figure in the painting. Does that mean the back of our head isn’t real? And by gazing upon the painting, someone behind you would see you as you see the painting, and someone could stand behind them, and so on. Each observer seeing in someone what they can never see themselves. Almost like the artist found this little glitch in Plato’s philosophy that repeats into eternity. It’s as if he is saying art or “reproduction” is the only way to know the unknowable.
It could be simpler too: the mirror (one mirror, alone) cannot do this. But this phrase is also used with respect to items under copyright, indicating that the copyright owner is forbidding the creation of copies.
Of course, the back of your head is real!! If it wasn't, your brains would've fallen out, thus vacating your cranial vault a loooonnngg time ago!! Or perhaps it has, and you've not realised it yet? 🤔
great video! i personally think that the book is often overlooked when talking about this piece. the way it is reflected & the subject isnt.. its almost like saying that the type of books we read is a far greater reflection of what type of a person we are than any image or reflection in the mirror of us. looks are deceptive.. beautiful faces could be the most terrible ones. its can also be interpreted as.. a book makes you REFLECT on yourself by removing you from the moment & making you look at yourself from a foreign perspective- thus the subject looking at himself. welp thats just me. cheers!
That book is also Poe's only constribution to the Lovecraft mythos (Locecraft gransfathered it into the mythos as a non-fiction diary) and ends on a cryptic cliffhanger where the protagonist encounters... something... which he doesn't have enough information to understand. And then it stops. Leaving the interpretation up to the reeader. The end of PYM has been caleld a Black Mirror because how you interpret it says more about you than ti does about the story. And we have a painting here that seems to be playing witht he idea that paitnings say more about the artists and the audience than they do the subject. There is definately some thematic ressonance at play here. ...but I'm relutant to say EXACTLY what the meaning is, because that would really say more about mw than it would the painting. ;)
It's always been a fun playful surprise as a painting, as with many by Magritte; tho this one's extra-special. At first, one might think: 'There's nothing 'wrong' with this painting. Why is it famous? Then, half a second later, realize the truth: "The mirror image should be of his face! Not a repeat of the back of his head! C'est Impossible!" A brilliant play by Magritte.
@@carlcushmanhybels8159 Whoever could say 'There's nothing 'wrong' with this painting'? It immediately strikes us as an 'uncanny valley', when we can't make immediate sense of it My take is the 'unknowing of identity'. we cannot know ourselves 'from the outside'. The title adds an another dimension of a ban on reproduction, whether by mirror or 'reflection' . Whence the veto? is our un-knowable-ness god-inflicted? or self-inflicted?
the 1939 "Portrait" is actually a "Porktrait". and though it's a stupid pun, i wouldn't be surprized if Magritte thought of it too (it works in french too "Porctrait"). the Belgians have an amazing sense of humour.
Specifically, Plato believed in his Theory of Forms, that the purest abstraction of any given thing or idea is the true "Form" of something, and that all that we will see of them is a shadow of it. He used the metaphor of the cave to detail this relationship. Humanity was represented in a cave. Inside the cave, there is giant stone, facing a wall, and behind that stone, a fire and some shadow puppeteers. Humanity is shown as chained to the wall-facing stone, and that all of our experience is merely a shadow puppet version of the truth. The people do not know of the fire or the puppets or the puppeteers, only what they see on the wall, and they only know it as true. He theorized that there would come a time when mankind would be freed, en masse or individually, from this stone, and would discover the truth of their situation. Of course, none of the others would be believe the ones who were freed. The world to them is shadow puppets, to tell them they are just shadow puppets is to tell them their world is a lie. The only way to learn the truth is to see it yourself, and the truth, according to Plato, is that there exists perfect forms of abstractions, and only outside of this cave can they all be seen. "Bedness," for example from the video. A Bed, and all that it implies, in it's purest abstractions, made realized. This would be it's Form. Of course, humanity is still incapable of realizing such a thing. We can make beds, we can make damn great beds, with the best cushions and mattresses and pillows and frames, the best night sleep the human body can ask for, but it will never fully be "Bed." This is why Plato also viscerally despised artists. He believed that they served only to further obfuscate Forms, to perpetuate the growing homogeny of abstraction, to associate Forms with other abstractions completely alien to them. To associate Red with Blood, for example, is to take away from "Redness," the purest idea of the color of Red. To associate Blood with Red takes away from the idea of "Bloodness," and the complex meanings of it, and all that it implies. Injury, life, violence, penance, medicine, they are all implied by Blood, and are inherent to humans interactions with Blood, but all such associations take away from the pure idea of "Bloodness," of the most unique characteristics of what makes blood, blood, and similarly the color Red does not imply any of this on it's own. "Redness" only implies an ever more saturated shade of Red, infinitely redder than itself until no change could ever be discerned. "Bloodness" implies all interactions of blood, all it's characteristics, made infinitely more unique to itself until all that remains is a perfect Form of Blood. To us, they may seem inseparable on any physical level- human blood is Red, but as far as their purest Forms are concerned, they are immutable, and run infinitely parallel, never to intersect, no matter what practical world-shackled meanings could be derived from doing so, and no matter how contradictory these Forms are inherently to each other to do so. He did not despise artists for their art. As imagery and messages to the worldly human race, they do their jobs perfectly, they are simply Art, but Plato's grand cosmic worldview was that art existed to turn pure abstractions of Forms into ever more meaningless noise, to turn "Bedness" into wood frames and cotton throws, and then to turn that into comfort, sadness, sex, dreams, a non-thing in the background of a painting or story. He believed artists eradicated Forms. It was all very Lovecraftian, actually. These days, you could easily disregard Plato as a raving schizophrenic for his Theory of Forms, that there is some meta-truth to all of reality, that there exists pure, infinite realization of all abstractions that the human brain simply cannot fathom in their entirety, and that artists, despite there being a Form of "Artness" somewhere in this fold, were a direct threat to the perception of Forms themselves. Perception as Reality was one of Plato's biggest talking points in regards to art, and how it affects the world. When we collectively agree on an association, instead of the truth as it is, what comes from it? How deeply do we believe in the shadows on the wall?
This video was quite well packaged and researched - subscribed! I've loved this painting for a long time (even have a print in my room) but was okay with not totally understanding it. I do think however that art can get closer to the truth than other 'real' documents.
3:52 - Actually, it's not even that. It's paint applied to a canvas forming the shape of _text_ representing the words "this is not a pipe" under some more paint that might make you think of a pipe.
I get the idea. But why call it a "lie" tho? It's someone's portrayal of the idea of a bed, his own truth. It's not like the painter "lie" and shy away from the true meaning of a bed.
I dont believe he himself thinks its a lie but rather how plato would think of a painting of bed, I disagree with that and think u have a point, a painting of a bed could be closer to ones idea of a bed “the true bed” than a physical bed
Thank you for another deeply researched and beautifully produced documentary. Your channel is my all-time favorite. I just realized from this video that your French accent is also impeccable-my untrained ear suggests: Québécois? ☺️
Apart from all the thought-provoking discussion, this video suddenly made me realise the inspiration for the cover of Gary Numan’s album “The Pleasure Principle”!
Art starts with appreciation and the desire to increase skill. Stopping the clock, concentrating and the enjoyment of the artists own personal expression of truth. It is a need...like breathing...
Where Plato is _wrong_ is: you can’t lay down and sleep on the concept of Bed. So if a bed purpose is to be able to sleep in it, the concept of Bed is false. Plato wasn’t really wrong but his assumption creates a paradox.
If you haven't already, (new subscriber) an in depth look at Andrew Wyeth's, Christina's World might make an interesting video topic. I've been fascinated by Magritte for half my life. In school, I even made a reproduction- I know- of The Kiss, which is yet another piece that obscures the face of his subjects.
What about something like an apple? Is a physical apple a rendition of the idea of an apple? I would think not in that there were apples before the words for it came to be. It’s simply named.
The only thing I can say to this video is....bravo! I had to study Magritte for an arts foundation course and you covered more in six minutes than my tutor did in six months.
I went to the Magritte exhibition in Brussels a few years ago. I found a lot of the images quite distrubingly violent - but these are a lot less well known than the famous portraits
I certainly learned quite a bit in this video. Now I’m wondering if there’s any significance to “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” or if it was just a book at hand. Probably it means something, but it’s been more than 30 years since I read it and I don’t remember the details. Impressive, nailing the pronunciation of the painting’s title.
I’m genuinely wondering that too! I’m glad I’m not the only one! I was looking through the comments to see if anyone else had the same question, Myself I know, everything in art is done with reason, and I wanna know the significance or symbolism of the book. Especially with how clealry it’s painted.
Salvador Dali's paintings wouldn't look impressive to most yet his sketches showed great skill. He could paint very detailed muscles and veins on sketches depicting his wife.
I don't understand this videos interpretation of this painting, but I think that's how Surrealism operates sometimes. Surrealist paintings move like living things
Excellent, as always. Thanks, man! (In my teaching, I prefer to call a portrait "a fiction" rather than "a lie." It makes me crazy when somebody says that the artist "captured the true character" of the sitter. This is absurd. Walt Whitman stated it well, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large -- I contain multitudes." There is no one "true character." It is very hard to get the student to understand that his/her primary concern is not with the narrative-the objects being painted-but with how to make a PICTURE out of them.)
Some years ago the National Gallery of Australia bought Magritte's The Lovers. A man and woman looking at each other but their faces are covered in a fabric so they can't actually see each other. It's at once a thrilling painting and immensely disturbing at the same time.
I just think he wanted to paint something that people would be trying to explain almost 90 years later; in that he succeeded. But was it worth succeeding at? I'm sure people will spend almost a century discussing that too.
Aristotle was a fool... all three things: the thought, the reality, the depiction of reality, are just aspects of the same thing... We think, we make, we think about... aspects of our understanding... what matters to me, is the act of thinking, and the act of creation... Magritte is profound because he shows us that our assumption about thinking and creating are just that... assumptions...
P.p.s. I come at this topic from the point of view of a visual neuroscientist studying perception and the way in which hus art engages perception and our brain so it is a very interesting topic
I disagree. Magritte is not simply repeating the pipe painting with another subject, if he wanted to say "That it is not a portrait but an image", he would have said it. What Magritte is showing, is that he prohibited himself a reproduction, or a "mimesis" as Plato says in The Republic (he could have shown Plato's The Republic instead of Edgar Allan Poe); he is not simply reproducing the phenomenic image, he is altering it. He did "poiesis", it's the etymological origin of the word "poetry", means "creation", he created something; he didn't reproduce it. I just watched the painting today in Mexico City and it looks very realistic in person. Maybe the curator of the museum of "Bellas Artes" played with the framing of the painting, but the frame looked just like the framing of the mirror. He made me question the differences between reality and fiction, like in the novel of Poe. You can feel as if you were the next guy showing its back to the mirror.
Interesting, thanks, but you can't sleep in the idea of a bed. The distinction is perhaps why philosophy is now not much more than an historical footnote.
Just love how the narrator explores the existentialism here - which goes on and on to end up tying one's mind into a Gordian knot!! Art lovers!! Hmmph!! They have that nauseating philosophical ability to turn the mendacity of lint in their navel into a Greek tragedy!! 🙄
Deep question here - I really enjoyed this thought process; art, or art with reflection being third or fourth removed from the truth. Then as the video ended and the painting was displayed again a thought jarred me, the book isn't reversed. What does that say about the book and its relationship to ideal truth?
Maybe the book just happened to be sitting on the mantle - coulda been a statue, or a vase of flowers. Not reversed because - lazy? You have to paint the words backwards - what a pain in the ass. Or do you mean, "Why that book?" Not sure. First published in 1838 it starts out like most nautical novels then gets… strange. It is Edgar Allan Poe after all. It would inspire Melville's "Moby Dick" and Verne's "20 000 Leagues Under the Sea" At one point in "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" the narrator and few others are castaway at sea in a life boat. They are starving and draw straws to see who will be dinner for the others. Poor guy named Richard Parker gets the short straw. In 1884 a boat sank off the Cape of Good Hope. For real this time. A few survivors were castaway at sea in a life boat. Starving, they drew straws to see who will be dinner for the others. Poor guy named Richard Parker. I don't know if Magritte knew that - or if it has any bearing on anything. Life imitates art???
@@brucefreadrich1188 at the risk of becoming even more esoteric, perhaps it's about imagining oneself, books often lead us to empathize with the characters or imagine ourselves as them. I would hazard a guess that the mirror is just a metaphor, or that it was never a mirror, it merely resembles a mirror.
The bed analogy begins with the false premise that the idea of a bed is the true bed; it is not. It is an idea ... in fact, as said many times, THE idea. What follows 'of' is irrelevant as the subject of the phrase is 'the idea' and not the object of the preposition, in this example, 'a bed'. In this work, one has to assume the book is there to show the viewer that it is a mirror. But, what if it isn't? Could it be a painting of a man looking at a painting of a man (himself)? The viewer has that choice to make - is the book 'in the mirror' a reflection of the book on the mantle in the mirror or is it part of the painting while, at the same time, the book is on the mantle as well as being painted on a mantle, in reverse image no less?
Yeah, but even the idea of a bed is a symbol of another idea. It is a resting place, it's a place for sex, it's a place for the ill and the weak, it's a place for childbirth so they are very different ideas and the symbol unites all those different things. So what is the truth? The truth is that the bed can mean all of these things and none of it. The bed is only a vessel and that vessel can be filled with meaning. The artist's purpose is to give meaning to that object and not just portray it and that meaning can be very different from what the viewer sees.
Beer drinking game; ' this is a what . a what ? , Yes,, a What. now that you were told twice you may go on to pass to the next person. tell them it is a what. they question you. repeat,, they understand and try to pass on. once if this game of open telligraph, all know what it is. those who mess up get a shot...Use any object to display as being a What...
The actual object slept upon is the bed. The idea is not a bed, the image is not a bed, nor are the letters B E D a bed. Just because someone says something does not mean they are correct, and when an incorrect notions floats about w/o challenge it becomes a bad thing, for art and life.
I m new, surprise et très emballée de ton travail !!! J ai mis la tite cloche, BIEn HÂTE DE m éduquer aux peintres, Car je suis moi même artiste peintre autodidacte et je recherche Toujours à agrandir mes horizons en histoire de l art !! Donc merci!!!
Doesn't this complicate his association to the surrealists? Because his imagery isn't "oneiric" per se (creating a sur-reality) but rather conveys philosophical ideas.
Hard disagree that the first truth is the idea of a thing. The idea and/or reception of reality actually the first removal from it. Therefore the idea and the art are both on the same level of removedness. Both likenesses and reproduction of a real thing in the world.
6:26 so, basically the rapresentation of somthing abstract/simply not visible in everyday's reality is more likely to get close to that idea than a realistic rapresentation of reality is to the idea of that reality... cool ig
The "rendition" of the bed is the real bed. The idea of the bed and the representation of the bed are both once removed from reality if you do not include all things that exist under the definition of reality.
I interpreted the “it is not a pipe” painting as the Surrealist going against the Bourgeois society. Saying that we will call things what we want and not let it be told to us.
The face in the hair is cool. kind of looks like a warewolf or dogish cat or an eletist dark mask. the 2 reproductions* look like a two different figuers bcause the hair is not the ssme where the one eye would be.
If that is a real mirror then the image in the mirror is a prohibited reproduction because, as we all know, it would never happen in real life. I see the painting more as an intriguing and playful way of giving the viewer a kind of Zen jolt.
He's not looking at his own portrait, he's looking into a mirror, specifically a large over-mantle mirror. The reflection of the book proves this. But rather than see what we expect to see, the front side of the figure, reflected back at us, we are seeing exactly what we see: the figures back.
@@whatthefridge1o1 Well, I speak English first (US) and learned French later, so I'm no expert! But I've been to France and I've been to Québec, and he sounds more québecois than French to me. I could be wrong.
If we saw a true reflection of our selves in the mirror--we would see the back of our heads. The reflection of the book is the lie. Perhaps to say that the "idea" of reading is the way to truth (or a truth), not necessarily just one particular book.
Interesting how in trying to produce paintings devoid of style, Magritte inadvertently established one of the most iconic and memorable painting aesthetics. Great video.
It isn't as if he never tried a different technique, but his wife impressed upon him to stick to the manner because it was what brought in the money.
@@ericalbany One smart lady 🙄
@@Farweasel yeah, but the result is that there's a lot of near repetition in his output.
@@ericalbany Practically the definition of ‘style’.
@@oldvlognewtricks
dear lord
you have insanely high production value for 2k subs
Thank you! I'm glad all this effort is being recognized!
@@TheCanvasArtHistory yeah you really do! I'm sure you will start to get noticed more :)
@@francismoore3352 174k subs later looks like you're right.
@@fishboymanshark Yep!!
@@TheCanvasArtHistory A journey, pulling on your boots and tying your laces . . .
Hmm…. It’s almost as if it is an argument against Plato. “The prohibited reproduction” The title alone evokes rebellion.
We cannot see the back of our heads and the only way we ever could is with a reproduction, like the figure in the painting. Does that mean the back of our head isn’t real? And by gazing upon the painting, someone behind you would see you as you see the painting, and someone could stand behind them, and so on. Each observer seeing in someone what they can never see themselves. Almost like the artist found this little glitch in Plato’s philosophy that repeats into eternity. It’s as if he is saying art or “reproduction” is the only way to know the unknowable.
It could be simpler too: the mirror (one mirror, alone) cannot do this. But this phrase is also used with respect to items under copyright, indicating that the copyright owner is forbidding the creation of copies.
Sounds more like an argument *for* Plato, rather than one against…
Of course, the back of your head is real!! If it wasn't, your brains would've fallen out, thus vacating your cranial vault a loooonnngg time ago!! Or perhaps it has, and you've not realised it yet? 🤔
great video!
i personally think that the book is often overlooked when talking about this piece. the way it is reflected & the subject isnt.. its almost like saying that the type of books we read is a far greater reflection of what type of a person we are than any image or reflection in the mirror of us. looks are deceptive.. beautiful faces could be the most terrible ones. its can also be interpreted as.. a book makes you REFLECT on yourself by removing you from the moment & making you look at yourself from a foreign perspective- thus the subject looking at himself. welp thats just me. cheers!
Good point.
That book is also Poe's only constribution to the Lovecraft mythos (Locecraft gransfathered it into the mythos as a non-fiction diary) and ends on a cryptic cliffhanger where the protagonist encounters... something... which he doesn't have enough information to understand. And then it stops. Leaving the interpretation up to the reeader.
The end of PYM has been caleld a Black Mirror because how you interpret it says more about you than ti does about the story. And we have a painting here that seems to be playing witht he idea that paitnings say more about the artists and the audience than they do the subject. There is definately some thematic ressonance at play here.
...but I'm relutant to say EXACTLY what the meaning is, because that would really say more about mw than it would the painting. ;)
@@ryanfogarty7691 Ahah. Thanks for knowing and sharing.
It's always been a fun playful surprise as a painting, as with many by Magritte; tho this one's extra-special. At first, one might think: 'There's nothing 'wrong' with this painting. Why is it famous? Then, half a second later, realize the truth: "The mirror image should be of his face! Not a repeat of the back of his head! C'est Impossible!" A brilliant play by Magritte.
@@carlcushmanhybels8159 Whoever could say 'There's nothing 'wrong' with this painting'?
It immediately strikes us as an 'uncanny valley', when we can't make immediate sense of it
My take is the 'unknowing of identity'. we cannot know ourselves 'from the outside'.
The title adds an another dimension of a ban on reproduction, whether by mirror or 'reflection' .
Whence the veto? is our un-knowable-ness god-inflicted? or self-inflicted?
You make subtle and difficult concepts clear in your lucid presentations!
Not in the best financial situation presently, but I hope I can better support the channel in the near future.
That's super sweet! But don't stress about it! You are already support the channel by commenting and viewing! It's super appreciated.
Thank you!!
Can't get enough Magritte stuff. I really need to do more research of him.
Fantastic video!
If you're still interested, I highly recommend the book *René Magritte and the Art of Thinking* by Lisa Lipinski.
He Marc. You might like this video inspired by Magritte: ruclips.net/video/aQjzqc4STGE/видео.html
I recommend you to get Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary book by MoMA
the 1939 "Portrait" is actually a "Porktrait". and though it's a stupid pun, i wouldn't be surprized if Magritte thought of it too (it works in french too "Porctrait"). the Belgians have an amazing sense of humour.
i love the connection with Plato's Book X! Great analysis!
Thank you very much Valentina!
The Canvas you’re welcome I love you!!
Specifically, Plato believed in his Theory of Forms, that the purest abstraction of any given thing or idea is the true "Form" of something, and that all that we will see of them is a shadow of it. He used the metaphor of the cave to detail this relationship. Humanity was represented in a cave. Inside the cave, there is giant stone, facing a wall, and behind that stone, a fire and some shadow puppeteers. Humanity is shown as chained to the wall-facing stone, and that all of our experience is merely a shadow puppet version of the truth. The people do not know of the fire or the puppets or the puppeteers, only what they see on the wall, and they only know it as true. He theorized that there would come a time when mankind would be freed, en masse or individually, from this stone, and would discover the truth of their situation. Of course, none of the others would be believe the ones who were freed. The world to them is shadow puppets, to tell them they are just shadow puppets is to tell them their world is a lie. The only way to learn the truth is to see it yourself, and the truth, according to Plato, is that there exists perfect forms of abstractions, and only outside of this cave can they all be seen.
"Bedness," for example from the video. A Bed, and all that it implies, in it's purest abstractions, made realized. This would be it's Form. Of course, humanity is still incapable of realizing such a thing. We can make beds, we can make damn great beds, with the best cushions and mattresses and pillows and frames, the best night sleep the human body can ask for, but it will never fully be "Bed." This is why Plato also viscerally despised artists. He believed that they served only to further obfuscate Forms, to perpetuate the growing homogeny of abstraction, to associate Forms with other abstractions completely alien to them. To associate Red with Blood, for example, is to take away from "Redness," the purest idea of the color of Red. To associate Blood with Red takes away from the idea of "Bloodness," and the complex meanings of it, and all that it implies. Injury, life, violence, penance, medicine, they are all implied by Blood, and are inherent to humans interactions with Blood, but all such associations take away from the pure idea of "Bloodness," of the most unique characteristics of what makes blood, blood, and similarly the color Red does not imply any of this on it's own. "Redness" only implies an ever more saturated shade of Red, infinitely redder than itself until no change could ever be discerned. "Bloodness" implies all interactions of blood, all it's characteristics, made infinitely more unique to itself until all that remains is a perfect Form of Blood. To us, they may seem inseparable on any physical level- human blood is Red, but as far as their purest Forms are concerned, they are immutable, and run infinitely parallel, never to intersect, no matter what practical world-shackled meanings could be derived from doing so, and no matter how contradictory these Forms are inherently to each other to do so.
He did not despise artists for their art. As imagery and messages to the worldly human race, they do their jobs perfectly, they are simply Art, but Plato's grand cosmic worldview was that art existed to turn pure abstractions of Forms into ever more meaningless noise, to turn "Bedness" into wood frames and cotton throws, and then to turn that into comfort, sadness, sex, dreams, a non-thing in the background of a painting or story. He believed artists eradicated Forms. It was all very Lovecraftian, actually. These days, you could easily disregard Plato as a raving schizophrenic for his Theory of Forms, that there is some meta-truth to all of reality, that there exists pure, infinite realization of all abstractions that the human brain simply cannot fathom in their entirety, and that artists, despite there being a Form of "Artness" somewhere in this fold, were a direct threat to the perception of Forms themselves. Perception as Reality was one of Plato's biggest talking points in regards to art, and how it affects the world. When we collectively agree on an association, instead of the truth as it is, what comes from it? How deeply do we believe in the shadows on the wall?
This video was quite well packaged and researched - subscribed! I've loved this painting for a long time (even have a print in my room) but was okay with not totally understanding it. I do think however that art can get closer to the truth than other 'real' documents.
3:52 - Actually, it's not even that. It's paint applied to a canvas forming the shape of _text_ representing the words "this is not a pipe" under some more paint that might make you think of a pipe.
I get the idea. But why call it a "lie" tho? It's someone's portrayal of the idea of a bed, his own truth. It's not like the painter "lie" and shy away from the true meaning of a bed.
I dont believe he himself thinks its a lie but rather how plato would think of a painting of bed, I disagree with that and think u have a point, a painting of a bed could be closer to ones idea of a bed “the true bed” than a physical bed
Thank you for another deeply researched and beautifully produced documentary. Your channel is my all-time favorite. I just realized from this video that your French accent is also impeccable-my untrained ear suggests: Québécois? ☺️
Got an unexpected semantic satiation of the word "bed"
Apart from all the thought-provoking discussion, this video suddenly made me realise the inspiration for the cover of Gary Numan’s album “The Pleasure Principle”!
Highly informative and well produced video; great to watch !
Thank you so much!! I'm happy you enjoyed :)
Art starts with appreciation and the desire to increase skill. Stopping the clock, concentrating and the enjoyment of the artists own personal expression of truth. It is a need...like breathing...
Where Plato is _wrong_ is: you can’t lay down and sleep on the concept of Bed. So if a bed purpose is to be able to sleep in it, the concept of Bed is false. Plato wasn’t really wrong but his assumption creates a paradox.
If you haven't already, (new subscriber) an in depth look at Andrew Wyeth's, Christina's World might make an interesting video topic.
I've been fascinated by Magritte for half my life. In school, I even made a reproduction- I know- of The Kiss, which is yet another piece that obscures the face of his subjects.
Merci pour cette explication limpide.
Wouldn't it have been better if the book was Plato's Republic?
My drawings and paintings didn't have faces in them either but that was because I couldn't draw faces.
Plato was wrong. :)
This is not a comment.
What about something like an apple? Is a physical apple a rendition of the idea of an apple? I would think not in that there were apples before the words for it came to be. It’s simply named.
Maybe he found him fruity 😂
Reproduction is prohibited, thus you cannot see his face in the mirror, as mirrors "reproduce" our image...
God I’m glad I never studied philosophy. I would have been driven nuts.
Brilliant video as usual!
Thank you Vito!!
love the commentary on this, very informative and relaxing
The only thing I can say to this video is....bravo! I had to study Magritte for an arts foundation course and you covered more in six minutes than my tutor did in six months.
Out Stealing Horses brought me here. What a high quality video! Thanks for that.
I went to the Magritte exhibition in Brussels a few years ago. I found a lot of the images quite distrubingly violent - but these are a lot less well known than the famous portraits
Thanks I totally understand it now. Philadelphia USA
I certainly learned quite a bit in this video. Now I’m wondering if there’s any significance to “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” or if it was just a book at hand. Probably it means something, but it’s been more than 30 years since I read it and I don’t remember the details. Impressive, nailing the pronunciation of the painting’s title.
I’m genuinely wondering that too! I’m glad I’m not the only one!
I was looking through the comments to see if anyone else had the same question,
Myself I know,
everything in art is done with reason, and I wanna know the significance or symbolism of the book. Especially with how clealry it’s painted.
Maybe he just sucked at drawing faces?
Salvador Dali's paintings wouldn't look impressive to most yet his sketches showed great skill. He could paint very detailed muscles and veins on sketches depicting his wife.
May be it's not a mirror but a painting that he's looking at.
I don't understand this videos interpretation of this painting, but I think that's how Surrealism operates sometimes. Surrealist paintings move like living things
Excellent, as always. Thanks, man!
(In my teaching, I prefer to call a portrait "a fiction" rather than "a lie." It makes me crazy when somebody says that the artist "captured the true character" of the sitter. This is absurd. Walt Whitman stated it well, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large -- I contain multitudes." There is no one "true character." It is very hard to get the student to understand that his/her primary concern is not with the narrative-the objects being painted-but with how to make a PICTURE out of them.)
Maybe if they read Dorian Grey. Maybe then they'd understand
It was actually just Magritte's way of saying he thought Edward James was totally unfuckable.
The humour which provokes thought, a staple of Magritte, reminds me of Banksy. I wonder if he was influenced by the Belgian.
Some years ago the National Gallery of Australia bought Magritte's The Lovers. A man and woman looking at each other but their faces are covered in a fabric so they can't actually see each other. It's at once a thrilling painting and immensely disturbing at the same time.
I just think he wanted to paint something that people would be trying to explain almost 90 years later; in that he succeeded. But was it worth succeeding at? I'm sure people will spend almost a century discussing that too.
It’s easier to tell you’re Canadian from your French pronunciation than your English pronunciation. 😁 (En tout cas, merci pour la vidéo.)
This is NOT A COMMENT
its a reproduction of rendition of reproduction of a comment
(i lost a brain cell)
Aristotle was a fool... all three things: the thought, the reality, the depiction of reality, are just aspects of the same thing...
We think, we make, we think about... aspects of our understanding... what matters to me, is the act of thinking, and the act of creation...
Magritte is profound because he shows us that our assumption about thinking and creating are just that... assumptions...
Inspirational content, as always!
Thank you! It's very appreciated
P.p.s. I come at this topic from the point of view of a visual neuroscientist studying perception and the way in which hus art engages perception and our brain so it is a very interesting topic
P.s. In fact, I have written a lot about several of his paintings.If you are interested we should discuss this
You do not make the letter T sound, when you pronounce his name..
That is not a letter T.
I disagree. Magritte is not simply repeating the pipe painting with another subject, if he wanted to say "That it is not a portrait but an image", he would have said it. What Magritte is showing, is that he prohibited himself a reproduction, or a "mimesis" as Plato says in The Republic (he could have shown Plato's The Republic instead of Edgar Allan Poe); he is not simply reproducing the phenomenic image, he is altering it. He did "poiesis", it's the etymological origin of the word "poetry", means "creation", he created something; he didn't reproduce it. I just watched the painting today in Mexico City and it looks very realistic in person. Maybe the curator of the museum of "Bellas Artes" played with the framing of the painting, but the frame looked just like the framing of the mirror. He made me question the differences between reality and fiction, like in the novel of Poe. You can feel as if you were the next guy showing its back to the mirror.
Interesting, thanks, but you can't sleep in the idea of a bed. The distinction is perhaps why philosophy is now not much more than an historical footnote.
Just love how the narrator explores the existentialism here - which goes on and on to end up tying one's mind into a Gordian knot!! Art lovers!! Hmmph!! They have that nauseating philosophical ability to turn the mendacity of lint in their navel into a Greek tragedy!! 🙄
Deep question here - I really enjoyed this thought process; art, or art with reflection being third or fourth removed from the truth. Then as the video ended and the painting was displayed again a thought jarred me, the book isn't reversed. What does that say about the book and its relationship to ideal truth?
Maybe the book just happened to be sitting on the mantle - coulda been a statue, or a vase of flowers. Not reversed because - lazy? You have to paint the words backwards - what a pain in the ass. Or do you mean, "Why that book?"
Not sure. First published in 1838 it starts out like most nautical novels then gets… strange. It is Edgar Allan Poe after all. It would inspire Melville's "Moby Dick" and Verne's "20 000 Leagues Under the Sea"
At one point in "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" the narrator and few others are castaway at sea in a life boat. They are starving and draw straws to see who will be dinner for the others. Poor guy named Richard Parker gets the short straw.
In 1884 a boat sank off the Cape of Good Hope. For real this time. A few survivors were castaway at sea in a life boat. Starving, they drew straws to see who will be dinner for the others. Poor guy named Richard Parker.
I don't know if Magritte knew that - or if it has any bearing on anything. Life imitates art???
@@brucefreadrich1188 at the risk of becoming even more esoteric, perhaps it's about imagining oneself, books often lead us to empathize with the characters or imagine ourselves as them.
I would hazard a guess that the mirror is just a metaphor, or that it was never a mirror, it merely resembles a mirror.
@@lightskitty "books often lead us to empathize with the characters or imagine ourselves as them" -Good books sure do.
I do not sleep on abstract forms. I sleep on beds. The bed that I sleep on is truly a bed. Plato's form-of-a-bed is a reproduction of a reproduction.
The bed analogy begins with the false premise that the idea of a bed is the true bed; it is not. It is an idea ... in fact, as said many times, THE idea. What follows 'of' is irrelevant as the subject of the phrase is 'the idea' and not the object of the preposition, in this example, 'a bed'. In this work, one has to assume the book is there to show the viewer that it is a mirror. But, what if it isn't? Could it be a painting of a man looking at a painting of a man (himself)? The viewer has that choice to make - is the book 'in the mirror' a reflection of the book on the mantle in the mirror or is it part of the painting while, at the same time, the book is on the mantle as well as being painted on a mantle, in reverse image no less?
Yeah, but even the idea of a bed is a symbol of another idea. It is a resting place, it's a place for sex, it's a place for the ill and the weak, it's a place for childbirth so they are very different ideas and the symbol unites all those different things. So what is the truth? The truth is that the bed can mean all of these things and none of it. The bed is only a vessel and that vessel can be filled with meaning. The artist's purpose is to give meaning to that object and not just portray it and that meaning can be very different from what the viewer sees.
Beer drinking game; ' this is a what . a what ? , Yes,, a What. now that you were told twice you may go on to pass to the next person. tell them it is a what. they question you. repeat,, they understand and try to pass on. once if this game of open telligraph, all know what it is. those who mess up get a shot...Use any object to display as being a What...
His French is so good!! I can listen to audiobooks with this voice all day
Did Magritte have a brain damage?
Im not trying to be...(?)
Could he se, identifie, reproduce the human face?
The actual object slept upon is the bed. The idea is not a bed, the image is not a bed, nor are the letters B E D a bed. Just because someone says something does not mean they are correct, and when an incorrect notions floats about w/o challenge it becomes a bad thing, for art and life.
I m new, surprise et très emballée de ton travail !!!
J ai mis la tite cloche, BIEn HÂTE
DE m éduquer aux peintres,
Car je suis moi même artiste peintre autodidacte et je recherche Toujours à agrandir mes horizons en histoire de l art !!
Donc merci!!!
Doesn't this complicate his association to the surrealists? Because his imagery isn't "oneiric" per se (creating a sur-reality) but rather conveys philosophical ideas.
Hard disagree that the first truth is the idea of a thing. The idea and/or reception of reality actually the first removal from it. Therefore the idea and the art are both on the same level of removedness. Both likenesses and reproduction of a real thing in the world.
6:26 so, basically the rapresentation of somthing abstract/simply not visible in everyday's reality is more likely to get close to that idea than a realistic rapresentation of reality is to the idea of that reality... cool ig
I knew this looked familiar; the painting is used as the cover for "One-Dimensional Man"
lol plato was so stupid. We gotta arrive at truth everybody!!! While artists exist exactly for the opposite reason
The "rendition" of the bed is the real bed. The idea of the bed and the representation of the bed are both once removed from reality if you do not include all things that exist under the definition of reality.
why is there bird poo on the back of the figure? very distracting but did Magritte do it or is the image just taken from a bad reproduction?
I remember going to a dollar store and seeing imitation processed cheese squares. An imitation of a imitation of a product.
Your talents are wasted on here .!
God... I'm sorry but why did you have to make the narrator sound so seductive?! I have a hard time already understanding art.
The 'reproduction' in the mirror is not a reproduction, but a portrait. The two images are not the same. Look at the hair. And no doubt intentional.
I interpreted the “it is not a pipe” painting as the Surrealist going against the Bourgeois society. Saying that we will call things what we want and not let it be told to us.
The face in the hair is cool. kind of looks like a warewolf or dogish cat or an eletist dark mask.
the 2 reproductions* look like a two different figuers bcause the hair is not the ssme where the one eye would be.
Like all great art, it asks profound existential questions. This process will always be an intensely personal relationship with the viewer.
If that is a real mirror then the image in the mirror is a prohibited reproduction because, as we all know, it would never happen in real life. I see the painting more as an intriguing and playful way of giving the viewer a kind of Zen jolt.
I have written a lot about this painting if you are interested
I appreciate the philosophy of Epicurus but i loathe Plato ,us i suppose, Magritte loathed him too.
Plato can go an lie down on his imaginary bed any time 😝 , I'm keeping my king-size
He's not looking at his own portrait, he's looking into a mirror, specifically a large over-mantle mirror. The reflection of the book proves this. But rather than see what we expect to see, the front side of the figure, reflected back at us, we are seeing exactly what we see: the figures back.
nothing is better than all this you intellectuals nonsensical postmodern art no thank you
The proper translation to reproduction interdite is reproduction forbidden or prohibited,
in other words, don't judge me for being a bad artist
Fantastic, thanks very much.
Wnikliwa analiza
Love this channel, but you really need to be sure you pronounced foreign names better. Magritte is pronounced “muh-GREET” (not “maw-griht”)
"Foreign names"? My first language is French.
How do you know it’s a mirror? What if it isn’t (and of course it isn’t).
Magreet -- not Magrit. Also, not interdit, but anterdeet. Also Mateess, not Matiss. Also, peep, not pip (pipe). Do you know what you're talking about?
My first language is French. Do you know what you're talking about?
Gee, I thought this is a cool video on human reproduction, I'm out
Bruh, do you even understand that 'idea' means 'picture'?
Your french is really good, do you speak it?
Two Canadian accents in one video! He speaks French with a Canadian accent. I bet he's bilingual.
@@weebunny lol I'm so Canadian I didn't even recognize the accent
@@whatthefridge1o1 Well, I speak English first (US) and learned French later, so I'm no expert! But I've been to France and I've been to Québec, and he sounds more québecois than French to me. I could be wrong.
If we saw a true reflection of our selves in the mirror--we would see the back of our heads.
The reflection of the book is the lie. Perhaps to say that the "idea" of reading is the way to truth (or a truth), not necessarily just one particular book.
brilliant observation!
Art should not be 'explained' through someone else's eyes.
I came here for an biology class but ended up with a art class
This is an amazing video! You deserve many more subscribers and views!
Thank you!!
Copy is not quite a lie. A like the word simulacrum.
You don’t even know how much you helped me for university. I am an art student and your videos helped a lot
The portrait also represents the lie - because that is not how a mirror works
I love he’s paintings beautiful masterful artist
Magritte knew what art was about. Metamodernists are a joke.