René Magritte

Ruth & Bredy Gradom, Belgium
Acquired from the above by the present owner in the 1980s

Executed on wove paper, not laid down, hinged to the mount in the top two corners, floating in the mount. There are remnants of tape from previous mounting along the reverse of the edges. This work is in very good original condition. Colours: In comparison with the printed catalogue illustration, the colours are overall fairly accurate, although slightly stronger and warmer in the original.
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La Grande table belongs to a celebrated group of Magritte's paintings and gouaches on the theme of petrified landscapes and objects. In this series of works the artist drew on his established repertoire of images, such us apples, human figures and birds, that have mysteriously transformed into stone. At the core of this image lies the paradoxical relationship between the solidity and timelessness of the rock and the perishable nature of the apple. Dominating an otherwise neutral, unidentifiable seascape, the apple here takes on a monolithic grandeur that evokes the size and scale of ancient stone circles. The juxtaposition of opposing ideas is one of Magritte's most frequently used devices, with which he paints mysterious images and creates new meanings. By confronting these contrasted elements, Magritte evokes the essential surrealist paradigm of questioning the significance and purpose we attribute to various objects and images, and creating new meanings by placing these objects in new and unexpected contexts.

 

The subject of an oversized apple appears frequently throughout Magritte's art, and in La Grande table it is used in such a way as to subvert the viewer's perception of time, space and matter. Writing about the way in which Magritte combined the image of the stone with other elements, Sarah Whitfield commented: 'In making these three elements, rock, sea and sky, as studiously neutral as the paint, Magritte distances himself from the two givens of the landscape painting – time and place – and risks an art of pure reflection and contemplation. It is as abstract in its conception as a work by Rothko, who was one of the first to remark upon the abstract qualities of Magritte's art' (S. Whitfield in Magritte (exhibition catalogue), The Hayward Gallery, London, 1992, n.p.). The idea of transformation, whereby one object turns into another, or assumes an unexpected substance, is one of the key leitmotifs of Magritte's art. He explored this notion using a variety of images, including a number of objects that appear to have turned into wood or water. In La Grande table this idea of transforming an ordinary, everyday image into an extraordinary, mysterious composition, is rendered with a clarity and economy that marked Magritte's most accomplished works.