Nadina Pascariu Gallery

  "What a gulf between impression and expression! That’s our ironic fate—to have Shakespearean feelings and (unless by some billion-to-one chance we happen to be Shakespeare) to talk about them like automobile salesmen or teen-agers or college professors. We practice alchemy in reverse—touch gold and it turns into lead; touch the pure lyrics of experience, and they turn into the verbal equivalents of tripe and hogwash.”  - Aldous Huxley, The Genius And The Goddess But do we all have Shakespearean feelings...? , the dialogue continues in the book. What interests me now is completing a thought mentioned in the previous post—the one about Magritte, communism, and the apple. The mystery of what exists, and the mystery capitalized on / conveyed / created through artistic means. I do not crush the wonders' corolla of the world And do not kill with my mind the mysteries that I meet On my way In flowers, in eyes, on lips or graves. The light of others Strangles the spell of the unpene...

Magritte, "The Son of Man", a painter of ideas—who does not see, but merely thinks, a parlor communist like Sartre, Picasso, and so many others, who provided cultural legitimacy to a totalitarian ideology. He was only able to be an ardent communist because he had the luxury of living in a capitalist democracy that allowed him to paint whatever he wanted and think however he pleased. Magritte possesses craftsmanship, has a clean, academic execution, and masters volume and perspective, but his plastic technique remains purely instrumental. It serves the idea; it does not celebrate itself. Next to Titian, Rembrandt, Velázquez, or, to remain within modernism, next to the chromatic force of Matisse or the genius of Van Gogh, Magritte looks almost like a technical illustrator. With the great masters of plasticity, the way light falls on a canvas or the texture of a brushstroke can take your breath away, even if the subject is just a piece of meat hanging in a butcher shop or an app...

  Magritte, „Fiul Omului", un pictor al ideilor - care nu vede, ci doar gândește, un comunist de salon ca Sartre, Picasso și atâția alții, care au oferit legitimitate culturală unei ideologii totalitare. El a putut să fie un comunist înflăcărat doar pentru că a avut luxul de a trăi într-o democrație capitalistă care îi permitea să picteze ce voia și să gândească cum dorea. Magritte are meșteșug, are o execuție curată, academică și stăpânește volumul și perspectiva, dar tehnica lui plastică rămâne una pur instrumentală. Ea servește ideea, nu se celebrează pe sine. Pe lângă Tițian, Rembrandt, Velázquez, sau, ca să rămânem în modernism, lângă forța cromatică a lui Matisse sau genialitatea lui Van Gogh, Magritte pare aproape un ilustrator tehnic. La marii maeștri ai plasticității, felul în care lumina cade pe o pânză sau textura unei tușe de pensulă îți pot tăia răsuflarea chiar dacă subiectul e doar o bucată de carne atârnată într-o măcelărie sau un măr pe o masă. La Magritte, materi...