A Perspectiva Amorosa (La Perspective Amoureuse) - René Magritte

A Perspectiva Amorosa (La Perspective Amoureuse) - René Magritte
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Guache sobre papel - 32x25 - 1950

La Perspective amoureuse explores one of the recurrent images of Magritte's œuvre, that of a closed door, broken by a hole that reveals a seascape behind it. At the heart of the image lies the paradox of the open/closed door: the composition shows an interior as well as an exterior, the door is closed as well as open, it has a dual role of hiding and exposing what is behind it. In this way, Magritte mystifies the familiar, questioning the significance and purpose we attribute to various objects, and creating new meanings by placing these objects in new and unexpected contexts. The mysterious atmosphere of the present work is further emphasised by the notable absence of human beings. While the unpopulated room contains no elements that would indicate man's presence, the hole in the door, though of an undefined shape, is suggestive of a human form. The sharp-edged shape of the opening can be traced back to the paper cut-outs that Magritte first developed in his early drawings and papiers collés of the 1920s. Gaping onto the sea and cloudy sky in the background, the hole presents a subtle, yet haunting suggestion of a standing figure or an embracing couple.

In other variations on this theme, Magritte placed different objects behind the door: a nocturnal sky, a monochrome black plane or a complex seascape with a tree-leaf and a house. The present painting, however, has a simplicity characteristic of Magritte's later work, focusing on a single object or idea. The interior of the room is reduced to the basic elements: the plain wall, simple brown door and a wooden floor, while the scenery seen through the door consists of a blue sky and sea. Having experimented with a large number of images in his earlier works, in his mature years Magritte arrived at a simplicity and purity that allowed him to focus on a particular idea, thus creating a stronger impact on the viewer.

As he explained in a letter to André Bosmans: 'If a simple image is wilfully complicated, it is more the result of a concern for fantasy than of a freedom attentive to a real and irreducible complexity. Thus, a door with an opening hollowed out to allow one to go in and out is at once simple and complex. It's out of the question to complicate this image with an overburden of unimportant events merely for the sake of fulfilling some puerile fantasy' (R. Magritte, Letter to André Bosmans, 2nd January 1964).