A Costureira (La Couseuse) - René Magritte

A Costureira (La Couseuse) - René Magritte

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Óleo sobre painel - 66x74 - 1922

The 1920s were a period of intense creativity for the young Magritte who developed his style, drawing upon various influences. According to Mesens; "Magritte [...] painted under different influences: that of Matisse, the futurists, Albert Gleizes rather than Picasso. He knew most of these painters only through reproductions." (Mesens, in 'René Magritte', Peintres belges contemporains, Brussels, 1947, p.157). His meeting with Mesens in the 1920s was seminal. Together, the two artists consulted the exhibition catalogues of various movements, including first and foremost that of the Futurist and Cubist movements.
Magritte incorporated certain innovative precepts into La Couseuse, such as the use of plain colours and a manner that tended to combine form and content. By refining the subject matter, Magritte pushed Cubist principles to their limit, retaining only the basic structural lines. Magritte thus opened his style to a dreamlike dimension, foreshadowing later works. However much the works from this period are situated on the edge of abstraction, Magritte always wished to work on the real. "I ended up finding in the appearance of the real world itself the same abstraction as in the paintings, because despite the complicated combinations of details and nuance of a real landscape, I could see it as if it were only a curtain placed in front of my eyes." (Magritte, extract from the conference La ligne de vie, 1938)