Magritte - Statue - Miniature - The Lovers (1928)

About René Magritte Lovers (1928)

This three dimensional miniature statue is a representation of the Belgian Surrealist painter René Magritte's oil on canvas, Les Amants (1928). Magritte Lovers represents a couple passionately kissing despite their faces being wrapped around a cloak. The surrealism of the work is found where Magritte defies our logic that would indicate that the couple's faces covered would make it impossible for the couple to kiss. Like in other works such as Son of Man, Magritte Lovers stresses our desire to know what is being hidden underneath the cloaks. Scholars argue that the work may represent Magritte's interest in depicting frustrated desires, while others suggest that the work symbolizes our inability to completely unveil our partner's true nature. Other scholars, have interpreted the work as a transformation of an act of passion into one of isolation and frustration, while others have tried to link Magritte Lovers to the traumatic drowning of his mother, whose face was covered by her nightgown as she was pulled from the water. Magritte on the other hand, simply characterizes his work as a mystery, and states that ""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.”