https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-8L-y7k-hkIlVTVkK/Magritte_djvu.txt
Time Transfixed
1938
By Rene Magritte
THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO
Department of Museum Education
Division of Student and Teacher Programs
The Elizabeth Stone Robson Teacher Resource Center
Rene Magritte
(Belgian, 1898-1967)
Time Transfixed, 1938
Oil on canvas, 147 x 98.7 cm
Joseph Winterbotham Collection, 1970.426
Rene Magritte believed that all beings and objects are mysteri-
ous. An enigmatic man frequently dressed in a dark suit and
bowler hat, he too possessed an aura of mystery. Unlike the
other Surrealists of his time, Magritte found mystery not in
fantastical imagery, but in everyday reality. The Art Institute of
Chicago painting Time Transfixed is a perfect example of the
mystery that can be found when ordinary, yet incompatible
objects collide.
The oldest of his family's three sons, Magritte was born on
November 21, 1898, in the small Belgian town of Lessines, just
outside Brussels. His father was a salesman, his mother worked
as a dressmaker and milliner, and the family lived a comfort-
able bourgeois life. However, Magritte's father was a restless
man, and the family moved frequently from town to town.
Consequently, as an adult, Magritte hated to travel.
Playing in a local graveyard, the young Magritte one day wit-
nessed an artist painting in a nearby grove. From that moment
onward, the boy viewed painting as a magical, mysterious act.
During his youth, Magritte attended weekly art classes where
his talent was recognized. His boastful father considered the
young Magritte a child prodigy and sold his childhood works to
fellow business partners.
Magritte's mother suffered from depression. In 1912, when
Magritte was just 14 years old, she committed suicide by
drowning in the nearby River Sambre. Although he rarely spoke
of this tragic event, the artist did mention on several occasions
the memory of his mother's face covered by her white night-
dress when she was pulled from the river, her body laid bare in
the moonlight. To what extent this memory was fact or fiction
is unknown; however, in later years Magritte painted several
works that evoke death by water, as well as others in which
faces are absent or concealed (Sylvester 14).
In 1916, Magritte moved to Brussels to begin his formal stud-
ies at the Academie des Beaux-Arts (the National Academy
of Fine Arts). While at the academy he studied anatomy
and perspective. During World War I (1914-1918), many of
the universities in Brussels had closed; consequently, the
Academy, which remained open, became a central gather-
ing point for students of all disciplines. Magritte made more
friends in the literary circle than with other art students, and
this companionship remained a life-long preference.
In 1921, Magritte married Georgette Berger, whom he had first
met when he was just 14 years old. The two lived a simple
lifestyle in Brussels. Instead of painting in a studio, Magritte
chose to paint in the dining room, where he could be closer
to Georgette. As an artist, fame did not come until the last
10 years of his life. To earn a living, he worked as a wallpaper
designer and commercial artist, making posters for businesses.
In his advertisements and designs he experimented with
collage and dislocation, which would later appear in his paint-
ings. Today Magritte's legacy is still apparent in advertising: for
example, the CBS eye logo was appropriated from Magritte's
painting False Mirror (1928) (Whitfield 11).
Beginning in the 1920s, a group of artists, writers, and poets
gathered in Paris around the poet Andre Breton (1896-1966).
These artists, the Surrealists, were dedicated to revising the
standard definition of reality, by focusing on automatic writing
and drawing, creating fantastical images, recounting dreams,
and exploring the subconscious. Magritte worked with these
artists during a three-year stay in Paris. In 1930, he returned
to Brussels, where he collaborated with a group of writers
who began referring to themselves as the Belgian Surrealists.
Unlike the flamboyant Parisians, this Belgian group better
suited the artist's reserved manner and his desire for anonym-
ity. Members rallied around the group's only painter, creating
poems and other texts to accompany works.
In 1924, Magritte became interested in the art of the Italian
Metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1974). Magritte
admired de Chirico's use of dislocation, the combination
of incompatible objects of reality, such as a cannon and a
clock, within the same picture frame. He also was attracted
to de Chirico's tight brushstrokes and pronounced outlines.
Magritte's mature style developed in the late 1920s. He experi-
mented with many of de Chirico's stylistic techniques such as
collage-painting, the juxtaposition of identifiable objects, and
the illusion of double images.
Magritte believed that the conscious combination of con-
tradictory objects could reveal similarities that are often
overlooked. In Time Transfixed, we find the surprising juxtapo-
sition of a locomotive protruding from a fireplace. In explaining
the painting, Magritte said: "I decided to paint the image of a
locomotive.... In order for its mystery to be evoked, another
immediately familiar image without mystery — the image of a
dining room fireplace — was joined" (quoted in May 1997). In
this work we also find another device that Magritte frequently
used, modification of scale. Here, the locomotive has been
shrunk to a non-traditional size to fit inside the fireplace. It is
in the surprising juxtaposition and shift of the scale of these
common and unrelated images that mystery, magic, and
humor merge. Magritte situated the train in a fireplace vent
so that it appears to be emerging from a railway tunnel. The
tiny engine races out into the stillness of a sparsely furnished
dining room, its smoke neatly floating up the chimney, as if to
suggest smoke produced by a fire.
A mirror, a clock, and two candlesticks are placed strategi-
cally on the mantel. These ordinary objects further add to the
mysterious setting. Magritte felt that mirrors provide mystery
in the sense that they are a false reflection of reality, and thus
he often included mirrors in his paintings. Although we find
both the clock and one candlestick reflected in the mirror, the
second candlestick, and the rest of the room, do not appear in
this mirror which, strangely, is as dark as the hearth below.
Giorgio de Chirico, The Philosopher's Conquest,
1913-1914. Joseph Winterbotham Collection.
Time Transfixed serves as a perfect example of Magritte's inter-
est in de Chirico. The combination of the train and the clock
is reminiscent of de Chirico's work The Philosopher's Conquest
(1914), also found in the Art Institute's collection. Magritte's
smooth brushstrokes, use of shadow, and dark palette also are
reminiscent of de Chirico's style.
The setting for Time Transfixed was inspired by the dining room
in the London home of the eccentric art collector Edward
James. The previous year, James had commissioned Magritte
to paint three works, including the Art Institute's On the
Threshold of Liberty. James, one of the few English collectors
interested in Surrealism, became acquainted with Magritte
after viewing his work at the 1936 Surrealist Exhibition in London
(Whitfield 75). While working on these commissions, Magritte
briefly lived in a studio above James's garage before returning
to Brussels. One painting, La reproduction interdite (Not to be
reproduced) was an unusual portrait of his patron that featured
the same mantel and mirror found in Time Transfixed.
Magritte's paintings often had unusual titles. He named
the work now at the Art Institute La duree poignarde, which
translates literally as "the concept of ongoing time stabbed by
a dagger." When he sent the picture to James, he expressed
hope that it might be installed at the bottom of the collector's
staircase so that it (presumably the outward-thrusting train)
would "stab" James's guests on their way up to the ballroom.
James, however, chose to place the painting over the fireplace.
A few years after completing the painting now referred to as Time
Transfixed, Magritte changed his style to one that portrayed the
"bright side of life." This included painting women, flowers, and
birds in a mock Impressionist style. A parody of Impressionism,
his new style was not well received by the public and, by the late
1940s, Magritte returned to his old style, focusing once again
on finding mystery in the most familiar of things. He continued
in this manner until his death in 1967, and his works impacted
such important 20th-century American artists as Robert
Rauschenberg (1925-2008), Jasper Johns (1930- ), Roy
Lichtenstein (1923-1997), and Andy Warhol (1928-1987).
Glossary
Classroom Activities and
Discussion Questions
bourgeois: middle class.
collage: derived from the French verb cotter, to glue or stick. A
work of art made by sticking pieces of paper, material, or other
items onto a flat backing, often in combination with painted
passages. This technique was used extensively by Cubists
Georges Braque (1882-1963) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973).
dislocate: (dislocation; dislocated) to put out of place; displace.
Magritte experimented with dislocation by combining incom-
patible objects together in the same picture.
Impressionism: avant-garde art movement originating in France
in the latter part of the 19th century that sought to capture,
as if seen in an instant, the rapidly changing modern world, as
well as the fleeting moods of nature. To do this, Impressionist
painters analyzed natural effects and relied on optical blending
to seize the impression of light at a given moment.
linear perspective: scientific method used by artists since the
Renaissance to represent three-dimensional space on a two-
dimensional plane, so that they appear as in nature. Linear
perspective involves a system of lines that converge at one or
two vanishing points in the distance.
Metaphysical: (metaphysical painting) term coined by the
Italian artists Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1974) and Carlo Carra
(1881-1966) for the calm, empty architectural scenes enlivened
by mysteriously inappropriate objects, which they produced
during World War I.
milliner: a person who designs, makes, or sells hats for women.
patron: a customer or client. An art patron is a person who
supports an artist or museum with money or endorsements.
Surrealism: a modern literary and artistic movement that
began in France in 1924 and flourished in Europe during the
1920s and 1930s. The movement, influenced by the writings
of the psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), stressed the
radical transformation of existing social conditions and values
through the liberation of the unconscious mind. Surrealist art
is characterized by bizarre, dream-like imagery.
World War I: (1914-1918) also known as the Great War, this
conflict was the largest war the world had yet seen. Prominent
causes for the war were the imperialistic, territorial, and
economic rivalries between Germany, Great Britain, France,
Russia, and Austria-Hungary. The United States entered the
war in April 1917.
• The Exquisite Corpse
The Exquisite Corpse was the earliest of the many games in-
vented by the Surrealist artists. Designed to create sentences
that were left to chance, it was played with five players who,
in turn, wrote an article and adjective/noun/verb/adjective/
noun, each folding over the paper so the next person could
not see what had been written. The name of the game de-
rives from such a sentence: "The exquisite corpse will drink
the new wine." Divide your students into groups of five and
have each group create its own Exquisite Corpse sentence by
following these steps:
• Instruct one student in each group to write the first
word or words of the sentence (article plus adjective) at
the top of a piece of paper. He or she should then fold
the piece of paper over to conceal the written word and
pass it to the next person.
• The next person should fill in the next part of speech (a
noun), conceal it, and pass the paper to the next person.
• When the sentences are complete, instruct students to
open the papers and share with the class. The results are
often strange and humorous!
• Please note that sentences may need slight editing.
• Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream...
Oftentimes, Magritte would create a painting after awaking
and recalling a bizarre dream. With its dislocated objects
and mysterious mood, Time Transfixed is reminiscent of an
unusual dream. Assign a creative writing exercise in which
students imagine and describe a dream that includes the
scene represented in the painting. How did the train appear
in the fireplace? What other unusual things are located in the
room? Ask students to concentrate on their sensory experi-
ences of the work. What do they see? Feel? Taste? Smell?
Hear? Have students share their dreams with the class.
• A Train Is Speeding...
Have students create a word problem using Time Transfixed.
For example: Pretend that the train is speeding out of the
fireplace at 45 miles per hour. How long would it take for the
train to reach a town located 32 miles away? Have students
work together in small groups to create a word problem
related to the painting. Have each group share their word
problem and then find the solutions!
• Surrealist Room
In Time Transfixed Magritte used the process of dislocation
by having a locomotive emerge from a fireplace. Display Time
Transfixed and have students discuss why this painting is
unusual, asking: What do you see? What kind of room is this?
What is out of place? Is the image serious or lighthearted?
Then, using the sheet provided (see the next page), have
students cut out objects from magazines to create a collage
of a Magritte-inspired room.
• What's for Sale?
Magritte's paintings are often used in advertisements.
Pretend that Time Transfixed is a billboard advertisement.
What might it be advertising? Have students create an ad-
vertisement using the painting.
Related Resources
Ades, Dawn with contributions by Margherita Andreotti and
Adam Jolles. Surrealist Art: The Lindy and Edwin Bergman
Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, I L Art
Institute of Chicago and Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1997.
Gablik, Suzi. Magritte. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1970.
Hammacher, A.M. Rene Magritte. New York: Harry N. Abrams
Inc., 1974.
Hanson, Abigale, with contributions by Cori Wulf. Rene
Magritte. Slide Packet. Chicago, IL: Art Institute of Chicago,
Department of Museum Education, revised 2000.
May, Sally Ruth. The Art Institute of Chicago — The Essential
Guide. Chicago, IL: Art Institute of Chicago, 1997.
Meuris, Jacques. Rene Magritte. Germany: BenediktTaschen,i992.
Sylvester, David. Magritte: The Silence of the World. New York:
Menil Foundation and Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1992.
Whitfield, Sarah. Magritte. London: The South Bank Centre, 1992.
The Art Institute of Chicago — Twentieth- Century Painting and
Sculpture. Chicago, IL: Art Institute of Chicago and Hudson
Hills Press, Inc., 1996.
Time Transfixed
1938
by Rene Magritte
Produced by the Department of Museum Education
The Art Institute of Chicago
Robert W. Eskridge, Woman's Board Endowed Executive Director
Rita E. McCarthy, Associate Director, Student and Teacher Programs
Written by Cori Wulf
Portions of this text adapted from Rene Magritte slide packet, written by Abigale
Hanson with contributions by Cori Wulf
Classroom Activities by Cori Wulf
Edited by Jane Clarke, Rita E. McCarthy, and Patricia Smith
©2001 The Art Institute of Chicago
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