René Magritte, one of the greatest artists from Belgium, is called the master of surrealism and has a great effect on modern art. His work is also well known for Korean people. Here are some examples of his famous works; ‘individual value’,‘Golconde’, ‘The treasons of images’. In this year, from April to September, there is a special exhibition that shows the works of René Magritte. I visit this exhibition to experience what is surrealism.
Many people think that exhibition consists of the painter’s works which are simply hanging and the explanations about the paintings. However, this exhibition break from the convention. It gives stimulation to audiences and make them easy to understand the artist’s point of view about his philosophy. At the entrance of exhibition, there is a photo-spot with ‘Le fils de l’homme’, which is the most famous work of Réne Magritte. By going through this place, the explanations about René Magritte’s works and his life begin to start. There are stories about his initial life and first encounter of his wife, George, who gave him lots of artistic inspiration. René Magritte was also interested in movie so that he produced his own short movie. I watched his movie and it was quite unique and had individuality in consideration in early 20th. Moreover, his movie is silent movie and it gave me unfamiliar and unusual emotions. Further inside, there is a figure of his painting. It was a work called ‘The treasons of images’, and a French sentence was located below the figure. This sentence was ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’. (In English, this means that it’s not a pipe.) Lots of audiences enjoy taking a picture with this figure. It was enormous and realistic figure.
After passing these places, media art exhibition which is the most important and beautiful place appears. Every work that René Magritte made for his life appeared from top to bottom and is expressed in intense and unique ways. Gentle classic music also adds special atmosphere. For 40 minutes, audiences can feel special moment and they were taking pictures to record every moment. When media art exhibition finish, the souvenir shop attracts audiences. All these products in the souvenir shop were decorated with the works of René Magritte.
Before visiting exhibition, I had no idea about the René Magritte and surrealism. I also do not know he made numerous works that had a great effect on modern art history. This special exhibition was good opportunity to feel various colors and unique composition of modern arts. Although these works were not real paintings of René Magritte, I could satisfy because of wonderful experiences. Unfortunately, it has difficulty in visiting exhibition in Seoul for Chungnam University students because of COVID-19, but I hope that this article would be a help for our students to enjoy rich culture activity by appreciating René Magritte’s works through internet.