The Empire of Light by René Magritte – Canvas Giclée Print

$109.00$169.00

The high-resolution canvas revisits the masterpiece “The Empire of Light” created in 1955 by René Magritte. As one of the Belgian artist’s outstanding paintings, it is part of the masterpiece series at Pigment Pool. The poetic and mysterious quality of the image makes it one of Magritte’s most popular and celebrated works of art.

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Belgian painter René Magritte’s dreamlike aesthetic and evocative dreamscapes have ensured him enduring legacy. As a proponent of the surrealism art movement, Magritte used visual imagery associated with the subconscious to create art without the intention of logical comprehensibility. As in so many of his paintings, the subject of “The Empire of Light” is unsettling and challenges the viewer’s understanding of the natural order of things.

Where is the picture “The Empire of Light” today?

The Magritte original of the picture “The Empire of Light” (“L’empire des lumières”) is part of a private collection today.

What’s in it?

The painting shows two dark block houses on a street, surrounded by trees, and cloaked in semi-darkness. Some windows are lit, and a streetlamp illuminates the entrance of the house closer to the viewer. Yet contrary to the expected, the upper part of the picture remains bright as day with fluffy white clouds drifting along a blue sky: The lower half of the painting takes place at night, while the upper half is bathed in sunshine.

What’s the context?

Magritte painted the original artwork of “The Empire of Light” in November 1955 for an exhibition at Zervos’s gallery Cahiers d’Art. In a television interview recorded the year after, Magritte commented on the picture: “… what is represented in the picture ‘The Empire of Light’ are the things I thought of, to be precise, a nocturnal landscape and a skyscape such as can be seen in broad daylight. The landscape suggests night and the skyscape day. This evocation of night and day seems to me to have the power to surprise and delight us. I call this power: poetry.”

Chatter and Prattle

René Magritte – Facts:

  • The present picture is not the only version of “The Empire of Light”: Magritte explored the theme in 17 oil paintings and 10 gouaches in total starting 1940 till the end of the 1960s. However, he did not plan these pictures as formal series at the outset, and they have never been exhibited together.
  • Some of Magritte’s artist peers criticized this kind of repetitive activity. When Marcel Duchamp was asked to contribute an introduction for a catalogue, he simply wrote: “Pieces by Magritte in expensive, in more expensive, in black and in colour.” (“Des Magrittes en cher, en hausse, en noir et en couleurs.”)

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Recommended Readings:

This article may contain compensated links. Please read Disclaimer for more info. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Stephanie D’Alessandro et al. (2013): Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938

Guido Comis et al. (2019): René Magritte: Life Line

Didier Ottinger (2017): Magritte: The Treachery of Images

Kathleen Rooney et al. (2016): René Magritte: Selected Writings

Siegfried Gohr (2009): Magritte: Attempting the Impossible

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