Frequently Asked Questions
Who Painted Golconda?
The Surrealist artist René Magritte painted the oil on canvas, Golconda (1953), which measures 80 by 100.3 centimeters. The title has been described to mean a so-called source of great wealth or a rich mine. It is the name of a collapsed city, also called Golconda, in Hyderabad, Telangana, in India.
What Does the Painting Symbolize?
Some theories around what Golconda (1953) by René Magritte may symbolize explore the collective and individual. Additionally, it also plays on the realistic appearance of everyday objects or figures that are placed in unique ways, which questions their meaning.
Where Is Golconda by René Magritte Located?
The oil on canvas, Golconda (1953), by René Magritte is housed at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, in America. It was reportedly bought in 1954 by John and Dominique de Menil, the founders of the collection, from Alexander Lolas, who in turn reportedly bought the painting in 1953 with several other of Magritte’s paintings, reportedly for 7, 500 FB (Burundian Francs).
The False Mirror
French Title: Le Faux MiroirYear: 1928
The eye was a subject that fascinated many Surrealist poets and visual artists, given its threshold position between inner, subjective self and the external world. The Surrealist photographer Man Ray once owned The False Mirror, which he memorably described as a painting that “sees as much as it itself is seen.” His words capture the work’s unsettling character: it places the viewer on the spot, caught between looking through and being watched by an eye that proves to be empty. It opens onto a void that, for all its radiant, cumulus-cloud-filled beauty, seems to deny the possibility of human existence.
The Lovers
French Title: Les AmantsYear: 1928
Frustrated desires are a common theme in René Magritte’s work. Here, a barrier of fabric prevents the intimate embrace between two lovers, transforming an act of passion into one of isolation and frustration. Some have interpreted this work as a depiction of the inability to fully unveil the true nature of even our most intimate companions.
Enshrouded faces were a common motif in Magritte’s art. The artist was 14 when his mother committed suicide by drowning. He witnessed her body being fished from the water, her wet nightgown wrapped around her face. Some have speculated that this trauma inspired a series of works in which Magritte obscured his subjects’ faces. Magritte disagreed with such interpretations, denying any relation between his paintings and his mother’s death. “My painting is visible images which conceal nothing,” he wrote, “they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, ‘What does it mean?’ It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.”
What is Depicted in the Golconda?
The painting depicts a group of men dressed in black coats with bowler hats floating in the air. Behind them are a background of azure sky and the façade of buildings with typically Belgian architecture.
The artist paints men as rigid and standardized, alter egos of the artist or the typically bourgeois 20th-century man. The figures are two-dimensional and immobile, yet they seem to float, rain down from the sky, or levitate upward. They are equidistant from each other and seem all identical. However, they differ in their faces and gaze: some turn to the right, others to the left. Their size varies according to the distance from the observer.
Magritte’s surrealistic approach takes everyday images out of their contexts, playing with reality and abstraction.
Magritte commissioned the title of the painting to his poet friend Louis Scutenaire, who decided to title it Golconda. The friend is portrayed in the face of one of the characters on the right of the painting, next to the chimney of the house.The title Golconda comes from the name of an ancient, ruined town in India, in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The city was known to be the nerve center of a legendary diamond industry. According to legend, it turned from a place of wealth into a city in ruins and total abandonment.
О чем говорит мне эта картина? «Голконда» Рене Магритта \ Книга Разума
Искусствовед Марина Хайкина и психоаналитик Андрей Россохин рассматривают одну картину и рассказывают нам о том, что знают и что чувствуют. Зачем? Чтобы, (не) соглашаясь с ними, мы яснее осознали собственное отношение к картине, сюжету, художнику и к самим себе.
«Мы одинаковы и неповторимы»
Марина Хайкина, искусствовед: «Образы, которые сюрреалист Магритт предлагает зрителю, навязчивы и абсурдны, и наше сознание живо реагирует на диссонанс с реальностью: мы замираем и пытаемся разгадать ребус. Именно в этом процессе осмысления и заключается, по мнению Магритта, подлинный смысл картины. И у каждого зрителя этот смысл свой.
Для меня «Голконда» – своеобразное размышление Магритта о месте каждого отдельного человека в обществе ему подобных, о балансе общего и индивидуального. Мы видим множество почти идентичных мужских фигур, последовательно удаляющихся от зрителя. Они одеты в одинаковые плащи и котелки, их позы похожи, что заставляет нас думать о них как о группе, сообществе людей. И расположены они в виде ромбических решеток, которые напоминают нам о кристаллической структуре алмаза (вспомним, что картина названа по имени алмазной столицы Голконды). Мир людей – это своего рода многогранник, наше существование подчинено жестким нормам. Но если приглядеться, каждый человек на картине отличен от другого, индивидуален и по-своему неповторим».
«Фантазия о всемогуществе не оставляет места для жизни»
Андрей Россохин, психоаналитик: «Чем больше я погружаюсь в эту картину, тем сильнее меня охватывает тревога и дискомфорт. Я ощущаю удушающую атмосферу мира, в котором нет ничего живого, природного. И действительно, здесь нет ни одного дерева, ни одной травинки. Даже небо изображено как искусственный фон, декорация. Шторы на окнах задернуты. Моя фантазия не может и не хочет пробиться сквозь эти занавеси. Такое чувство, что за ними нет ничего. Бесстрастно парящие в небе фигуры в деловых пальто и котелках, казалось бы, подчеркивают власть мужчин – сильных мира сего. Им доступно все, даже хождение по небу. Я представляю себе, что этих мужчин становится все больше и больше, и наконец они сливаются в один огромный серый объект, заполняющий все пространство картины. В нем стираются не только половые, но и любые индивидуальные различия. Он становится похож на гигантский Фаллос, каменную бабу, образ языческого божества древних народов. Возможно, никто кроме Магритта не передал так точно отравляющую силу фантазии о всемогуществе. Магритт показывает нам, что это всемогущество основано на власти мужчин или на власти денег. Но эмоционально картина передает значительно более глубокое послание: в мире, где царствует фантазия о бесконечной власти, природе и живому человеку места нет.
Однако внезапно я нахожу убежище и в картине Магритта. Я замечаю, что парящие мужчины не занимают все пространство картины. Справа мы видим свободный угол дома. Именно на нем и стоит подпись самого Магритта. Я чувствую, что у мира всемогущества есть свои границы, он не бесконечен. Я не могу заглянуть в окна этого углового дома, но моя фантазия рисует живое пространство, полное чувств, энергии, творчества».
Golconda Artwork Analysis
René Magritte’s works are distinguished by a sense of mystery. They are images that break with the traditional representation of reality, introducing irrational and dreamlike elements to be grasped intuitively. Magritte himself emphasized several times that it is not necessary to question the precise meaning of his works, which are often intended to create visual suggestions and give voice to the inexplicable, rather than to expressly communicate something. For this reason, he never provided a univocal explanation of Golconda, leaving the viewer free to develop his one.
One possible interpretation in Golconda may relate, for example, to the standardization of the bowler hat-wearing characters, a metaphor for the conformism of modern society.
The men, all dressed alike, are replicated as raindrops and project their image through shadows. The individuality and peculiarities of each person disappear. Magritte seems to comment on the alienating condition of life in modern metropolises and the mass society that tends to anonymize people. It symbolizes how people can lose individuality to become part of mass consumerism culture, thus becoming isolated.
Moreover, Golconda is a work made in 1953, shortly after the end of World War II, when Europe had been shaken by totalitarianism. The relationship between the individual and the collectivity is, therefore, a relevant theme.
Formal Analysis: A Brief Compositional Overview
The Golconda painting analysis will provide a visual description of the subject matter followed by a look at how the main art elements arrange the composition, namely, according to color, texture, line, shape, form, and space.
Subject Matter: Visual Description
Golconda by René Magritte depicts an urban landscape meeting the sky. It is composed of a row of red-roofed buildings, which have been described as a Belgian architectural style. All the windows appear closed with the curtains inside drawn. It appears that only the upper two stories and attics of the building are visible, which compose the lower half of the composition; the blue sky composes the upper half.
The right edge of the composition depicts a portion of another building, which appears closer as if it is right next to us, the viewers. The edges of its windows just jut into the composition. What makes this seemingly normal urban scene less normal is dispersed, and in mid-air, dark upright, almost pen-like, shapes, which are in fact the figures of men.
They are all formally dressed in suits and ties, bowler hats, and long dark gray/black overcoats below their knees. Interestingly, these are outfits that René Magritte also used to wear himself. A notable item is the bowler hat, which is repeated in numerous of his other artworks like The Son of Man (1964) and Man in a Bowler Hat (1964), and which was attributed to the artist’s style.
Some of the men have their hands in their coat pockets, others’ arms are at their sides, and others are holding items in their hands, which appear to be briefcases. Some of the men are looking straight at us, the viewers and others are facing to the left, right, and what appears to have their backs to us. Their facial expressions appear somewhat neutral as if they are almost mindlessly staring into the space ahead of them. The men in the foreground are more visible than those in the middleground. The men towards the middleground are floating close enough to the building for us, the viewers, to notice their shadows on the wall, windows, and roof. The background consists of men behind the building and in the sky in the distance.
Color
The dominant colors in Golconda by René Magritte consist of the dark gray/black from the men’s garments, the darker red of the building’s roof, the neutral concrete beige of the building, and the lighter blue of the sky. However, there appears to be an overall color harmony due to no bright or stark colors creating contrasting effects. There is also an unknown light source that appears to originate from the left side of the composition.
Texture
The brushstrokes of René Magritte’s Golconda appear smooth and imply a sense of realism in the subject matter. For example, the smooth surface of the buildings, which gives the impression of stone, or the men’s coats and the curtains in the windows, appear softer.
Line
Golconda by René Magritte depicts a distinct horizontal and vertical linearity, namely the horizontal orientation of the composition conveyed by the buildings in the middleground, which appears to create a divisionary line between the lower and upper part of the painting. This is contrasted by the vertical direction of all the men, and they convey a directional vertical line going either up or down.
Shape and Form
There is an interplay of geometric and organic/naturalistic shapes and forms in Golconda by René Magritte, notably the square and rectangular shapes of the building and windows, the gable roof on the left side of the building is a triangular shape with a circle in the center that appears to be a small window. The men, although rigid in their shape, provide a contrasting, more naturalistic form compared to the urban setting around them. For example, their curved hats and figurative forms.
Space
René Magritte created a sense of depth utilizing other art elements like color and light and dark effects. This is created by the men’s shadows on the building, which indicates the distance between the men and the building. The men in the background are lighter in color and hazier compared to the men in the foreground who appear clearer and more visible.
Magritte also depicted different sizes, the scale of the men in the background is smaller compared to the men in the foreground, which conveys a sense of spatial depth and how far the men recede. Another interesting feature of the spatial area in Golconda is the repetitive pattern Magritte arranged the men in. Some have described it as a patterned grid, which has been likened to a diamond shape.
Artist Abstract: Who Was René Magritte?
René François Ghislain Magritte was born on November 21, 1898, in Lessines in Belgium, and died of pancreatic cancer on August 15, 1967, in Brussels, Belgium. He was one of the leading Surrealist artists and always questioned the nature of reality and the representation of it. He started art at a young age, and his earliest style has been described as Impressionist, but he found Surrealism when he moved to Paris in 1927. During his early teenage years, he lost his mother to suicide and was reportedly at the scene when her body was found. He was married to Georgette Berger, and they reportedly did not have children. Some of Magritte’s famous artworks include The Lovers (1928) The Treachery of Images (This Is Not a Pipe) (1929), and The Son of Man (1964).
René Magritte (1967) by Lothar Wolleh; Lothar Wolleh, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Описание картины Рене Магритт «Голконда» Картины художников
Сюрреализм – самое загадочное и абсурдное направление искусства. Часто похожие на рекламные плакаты, необычные и парадоксальные, картины Рене Магритта относят к сюрреалистическому стилю.
Однако автор причисляет их к так называемому «магическому реализму»
Однозначно лишь то, что его творения всегда притягивают внимание, врезаются в память и заставляют каждого задумываться о чем-то своем
Полотно «Голконда» — из серии загадочных работ Магритта. Оно датируется 1953 г. Сперва замысел картины может показаться неясным. Если обратиться за помощью к трактовке названия «Голконда», выясняется, что оно обозначает индийский город, где добываются крупные алмазы. Но полученный факт мало проясняет взгляд на изображение.
Ведь часто сюрреалисты называли творения ничуть не относящимися к сюжету именами. Разве что расположение фигур на
полотне может слегка напомнить особую структуру алмаза.
Чтобы понять задумку автора, придется окунуться в мир свободных ассоциаций. Известный персонаж картин художника – джентльмен в костюме и котелке. Здесь он дублирован несчетное число раз. Если приглядеться, то каждый мужчина на картине хоть чем-то, но отличается от однообразно одетых собратьев.
В этом прослеживается факт индивидуальности каждого человека, несмотря на первоначально кажущуюся одинаковость.
Джентльмены художника изображены зависшими в воздухе в перспективе. Некоторые из них отбрасывают тени на здание с одинаковыми окнами. Сочетание городского пейзажа и аллегорической сцены смотрится превосходно.
Можно увидеть в «Голконде» одноликую толпу, но даже при всем множестве людей и их поразительной схожести, каждый чувствует одиночество. С помощью незамысловатых образов бельгийский сюрреалист показал сильное человеческое переживание.
Известная картина Рене помещена в частную коллекцию в Хьюстоне.
Прислал: Фомина Анастасия . 2017-10-08 22:22:42
Golconda
French Title: GolcondeYear: 1953
The piece depicts a scene of “raining men”, nearly identical to each other dressed in dark overcoats and bowler hats, who seem to be either falling down like rain drops, floating up like helium balloons, or just stationed in mid-air as no movement or motion is implied. The backdrop features red-roofed buildings and a mostly blue partly cloudy sky, lending credence to the theory that the men are not raining. The men are equally spaced in a lattice, facing the viewpoint and receding back in rhombic grid layers.
Magritte lived in a similar suburban environment, and dressed in a similar fashion. The bowler hat was a common feature of much of his work, and appears in paintings such as The Son of Man.
One interpretation is that Magritte is demonstrating the line between individuality and group association, and how it is blurred. All of these men are dressed the same, have the same bodily features and are all floating/falling. This leaves one to look at the men as a group. Whereas if one looks at each person, one can predict that they may be completely different from another figure.
