Dyer, "Metaphysics of the Mundane," 34.
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René Magritte’s The False Mirror depicts what appears to be a human eye framing a cloudy, blue sky. There is a flat smoothness to the piece which removes it from something that could be seen in reality as well as works to the effect of the hiding Magritte’s artistic hand. The viewer’s eyes are immediately drawn to the pupil in the center of the piece. The stark contrast in color between the solid black pupil and the beautiful, light blue sky is somewhat jarring and forces the viewer to notice the separation between the pupil and the sky. It appears that the sky is behind the pupil which creates the impression of looking through the eye and into the person to whom the eye belongs. The clouds in the sky are white and pillow-like and the sky is a light shade of blue, which creates a very relaxed and peaceful feeling. It seems as though the eye functions as a very real “window to the soul.” Looking through the eye it feels as though the viewer is looking into the person. This person could be anyone and so I assume it to be a representation of anybody – of humanity. This eye of humanity framing the sky denotes a relationship between man and nature but the two – the eye and the sky – are separate and so perhaps Magritte is provoking the viewer to think about their reason and purpose in this world and to realize that the world we live in is of our own creation.
In Magritte’s paintings, the familiar becomes uncanny; recognizable representation is a trap – a complete denial of what is known. During his time in Paris, Magritte became one of the most creative artists of the era, systematically challenging representation in painting in way that had never been done before.[1] Prior to Magritte, Surrealism was dominated by painters who tended toward a style of biomorphic abstraction.[2] Surrealist artists used methods such as free association, or the material which is found in dreams, in an effort to “unleash the creative forces of the subconscious, freeing the process from the control of the rational mind.”[3] In contrast, Magritte focused on familiar, yet eccentric, subject matter, and developed a painting style that was decidedly readable. However, at the same time, his work tends to question logic and meaning.
Magritte was exposed to and influenced by Sigmund Freud’s ideas about dream formation and the unconscious. Magritte said about art, “All art form is essentially the form of a dream, and all those things that go into the making of our dreams when we lie asleep go into art”.[4] Magritte continues to explain that the purpose of art is to “translate to the audience in logical thought, what one had been unconsciously thinking and feeling and had suppressed so that it appeared in a dream”.[5]
Magritte was also inspired by other artists around him. For example, in 1922, Magritte saw de Chirico’s The Song of Love which affected him so much, he was brought to tears in front of the piece. Influenced by de Chirico’s work, Magritte created his first work in which he used the image of a detached eye – Untitled.[6] This was beginning of many pieces he would create using the image of the eye – The False Mirror being one of them.
The False Mirror is such an exquisite work of art that has generated much conversation in the art world as to its meaning, which is still debated today. According to A.M. Hammacher, an art critic of the early-mid twentieth century, The False Mirror was created for the purpose of trading it for a photograph taken by Man Ray of a large eye that had quite fascinated Magritte.[7]
