Getty Museum
The Giant (Paul Nougé)
Creator
René MagritteBelgian Photographer · 1898–1967
All works by this person →> The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown, since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown. > > -- René Magritte Through paradox and surprise, René Magritte's work unmasks the nature of perception. Painted with a disquieting realism, they include unexpected juxtapositions exploring the relationship between objects and their visual representation. Magritte's bowler hats
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1937
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Culture
- Belgian
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
>The most powerful image for me is one characterized by a high degree of arbitrariness...either because it is self-contradictory to a high degree...or because it contains an insufficient formal justification within itself...or because it provokes laughter. So wrote André Breton in his Surrealist manifesto. René Magritte's photograph seems to adhere to all of those definitions of a powerful image. It is a portrait without a face, intentionally obscuring writer and photographer Paul Nougé's identity. It is a casual, humorous snapshot--the chessboard held up by Nougé makes the gesture of holding the pipe aloft, as if pausing from an inhale, a practical impossibility.
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