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Rene Magritte – Empire des Lumieres
The first time I saw this painting I was reading an art book for children and little did I know that it would have been my favourite painting and that I would bought a book about the artist written in French only because there was the picture of this painting. I was fascinated by the picture, there was something that disturbed me but it was also pleasant about it.
The painting represent a house in a wood. On the foreground there is grass with a big rock, in the grass there is also a tree. Behind the tree there is a house with almost all windws closed. The two windows opened are lightened up. In front of the house there is street light, which is also light up. On the side of the building there is a group of trees. in the upper part of the painting there is a cloudy sky seen by day.
The lower part is dominated by dark colours and tones, but they are mitigated by the lights and the lignt blue cloudy sky. So the upper part is monopolized by light, brilliant and bright paint.
It is an oil on canvas with a matte texture.
At first sight it seems a normal landscape: the dark low part is explained by the wood, but if you look another time you can see that there is nothing right in this painting. Where there is dark is night and at the same time there is a daylight sky. This is an imaginary painting: the author paints day and night at the same time. It shows the opposites. Furthermore it is like the yin-and-yang symbol: the white point is represemted by the street light and the highest tree serve as the black point.
It was painted by the belgan painter René Magritte, who realised a series of this painting, all with the same title. These canvas are kept in many museums. The surrealistic painter realized many picture in which objects are not represented as in the reality, for example they can be bigger or smaller. Surrealism based its subjects on dreams and in dreams all can be as we want or our subconscious wants.
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