Galocha Cultural

sexta-feira, 12 de novembro de 2021

Chopeira da Choperia Pinguim, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil

Chopeira da Choperia Pinguim, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil
Ribeirão Preto - SP
Fotografia

Nota do blog: Data e autoria não obtidas.

Pinguim em Louça, Choperia Pinguim, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil

Pinguim em Louça, Choperia Pinguim, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil
Ribeirão Preto - SP
Fotografia

Emblema em Bronze da Choperia Pinguim, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil

Emblema em Bronze da Choperia Pinguim, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil
Ribeirão Preto - SP
Fotografia

Interior da Choperia Pinguim, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil

Interior da Choperia Pinguim, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil
Ribeirão Preto - SP
Fotografia

Roupas de Inverno em Italiano / Abbigliamento Invernale

Desenho

Cinema Azul (Cinéma Bleu) - René Magritte

Cinema Azul (Cinéma Bleu) - René Magritte
Coleção privada
OST - 65x54 - 1925

In the years between 1920 and 1925 Magritte’s work underwent a dramatic shift that took him from a Cubo-Futurist style to the Surrealist aesthetic that would occupy him for the rest of his life. Dating from 1925, Cinéma bleu is one of the very first examples of his Surrealist painting and introduces some of his most iconic motifs and ideas.
For Magritte, the early 1920s were characterized by an increasing engagement with artists across Europe. He was familiar with the works of the French Cubists from reproductions in publications and probably in person at exhibitions organized by the Atelier Sélection in Brussels. He also made contact with the Futurists in Italy, receiving a parcel of manifestos from Marinetti. It is evident in his reaction to their works–which he described as “a powerful challenge to common sense”–that he was looking for a new mode of expression. Both movements had a profound effect on his art, however, the real breakthrough came around 1924 when he first saw a reproduction of a painting by Giorgio de Chirico. As his friend and early supporter E.L.T. Mesens later noted: “We were bewitched. A few days later, Magritte discovered in a second-hand bookshop a booklet devoted to the same painter. We were overcome by an unparalleled emotion”.
The influence of de Chirico’s eerie, classical piazzas can be seen in Cinéma bleu–not least in the classical temple of the background–but Magritte’s work embraces a much more modern sensibility. Throughout this period, Magritte worked as a commercial artist taking on commissions for posters, sheet-music covers and advertisements. The elegant female figure of the present work particularly evokes the art deco style that he adopted in his work for Honorine Deschryver, a leading Brussels fashion designer and he would repeat her almost exactly in the design for a sheet-music cover he produced in 1926. This “borrowing” from life was something that would continue in Magritte’s oeuvre, with many future works using images from popular culture as a starting point.
Indeed, both the setting and the protagonists of this mise-en-scène introduce themes that would preoccupy Magritte for much of his career. We are signposted to the mysterious “cinéma bleu” of the title, but the theater itself remains invisible. As David Sylvester notes in the catalogue raisonné entry for this work, “Irène Hamoir linked the title of this work to the Charleroi cinema of that name, which was one of Magritte’s few recollections of his childhood there”. It is typical of Magritte’s conceptual concerns–namely questions of representation and originality–that the cinema of this painting should have a physical existence in the real world but exist only “off-scene” in the world of the painting.
The theatrical nature of the composition is emphasized by the curtains that frame the work. Jacques Meuris discussed the importance of this device in the artist’s work: “From the very earliest canvases, once Magritte knew what he was doing, drapes were a repeated feature. They appear in both Blue Cinema (1925) [the present work] and The Lost Jockey (1926), for example. One way of looking at them is as a technical device. They are usually shown with loops, giving them the appearance of open stage drapes, and they enable the artist, through a process of optical illusion, to locate the planes of his image within the pictorial space. Another way of looking at these drapes is as a way of suggesting the fallacious (misleading) nature of the painted picture in relation to what it actually represents. Hence the idea of the stage set, to which the drapes lend emphasis”. The creation of these deliberate “stage sets” on which to lay out the action of his paintings was an idea that Magritte would return to in many forms and one which would inspire other twentieth century artists.
Magritte’s interrogation of representation underpins much of his painting, but he was also deeply interested in the role of the fantastic or extra-ordinary in the everyday. This was felt particularly keenly in these early years, when he was shifting away from the artistic establishment and embracing a new Surrealist philosophy. As he later explained in a lecture: “As regards the artists themselves, most of them gave up their freedom quite lightly, placing their art at the service of someone or something. As a rule, their concerns and their ambitions are those of any old careerist […]. I had a point of reference which held me elsewhere, namely that magic within art which I had encountered as a child”.
For Magritte, art could (and should) reveal the mystery of the everyday. He loved cinema for the same reason and in Cinéma bleu combines the two, creating an enigmatic and alluring scene that is deeply connected with a childlike sense of wonder. As Christoph Grunenberg notes, the balloon in the background apparently “recalls the dramatic incident from Magritte’s childhood when a balloon landed on the roof of the family home – the sudden eruption of the ‘marvelous’ within the everyday, which the artist associated with the magic of cinema”. Similarly, the toppled bilboquet in the foreground–which is a prototype for the later motif–is a transformation of the child’s wooden cup-and-ball toy into an object of equal but different wonder.
In combining these objects, Magritte creates an unsettling, surprising and mysterious canvas that shows him experimenting with Surrealist ideas and laying the groundwork for much of his subsequent art.