The future of statues

"The Future of Statues" is a series of works by René Magritte made, according to various sources, between 1927 and 1937. Art historian David Sylvester writes that when Magritte came to London in the 1930s (there were several such trips), he visited the Maison Berge art supplies store owned by his wife Georgette's sister. There, the painter bought plaster reproductions of Napoleon's posthumous mask, which he then covered with images. He most likely used five such casts in his work, four of which have survived. The first of these, according to Magritte's Resonance catalog, dates from 1931, with a painted sculpture of a human head resembling works from his future series as early as 1927 in the painting The Forest. Note that Paul Nougere, a friend and colleague of René, also spoke about the artist's work with the posthumous masks of Robespierre and Pascal, but they have been lost for the time being.

Various scholars assign different meanings to the "Future of Statues" series. We will focus on the most common interpretations.

The Real and the Illusory

An important role in the work of Magritte plays the use of two or more disparate elements of reality in one work. For example, day and night, two seasons or two spaces (interior and exterior) can merge into one painting. In The Future of Statues the painter complements the plaster cast with an image of a cloudy sky - thus the posthumous mask acquires a "living" quality that puts the viewer into a stupor. Moreover, a space is created around the sculpture placed on the wall, which evokes a sense of emptiness and a certain irreality, enhancing the poetic qualities of the work. This is how the transformation takes place, based on the correlation of the real posthumous mask with the artist's reflections on the sky, which now become not just fantasies, but form a new poetic and spatial reality.

a "blow" to metaphysics

We propose to dwell on why René Magritte liked unexpected juxtapositions: like his Surrealist colleagues, the painter liked to reveal the hidden meanings of the objects he was working with. The artist "liberated" objects from the functions and associations attributed to them and believed that the resulting synthesis violated the established relationship between the imagination and reality. According to researchers, this "blow" to the sphere of the metaphysical recalls the work of the revered Giorgio de Chirico, Magritte: The Future of Statues refers us in particular to ancient sculpture, which the precursor of Surrealism so often depicted in his canvases. Moreover, in the combination of the human head and the celestial landscape, some art historians see a reference to the transcendental state of perfect liberation, a belief in the achievement of which is characteristic of Indian religions.

Head in the Clouds

When analyzing The Future of Statues, it is also worthwhile to start from the fact that Magritte used a posthumous mask of Napoleon Bonaparte in his work. Then the image of the sky will probably remind us of the phrase "head in the clouds," which in relation to the French emperor can be interpreted as an expression of his arrogance. On the other hand, by painting the cast, the artist was entering into a discussion with the monumental tradition that glorified Napoleon even when he was no longer alive. Many painters depicted Bonaparte some time after his death, referring to the plaster cast and foretelling the emperor's eternal fame. Magritte, however, in The Future of the Statues, conceals and blurs the features of the once all-powerful ruler, revealing the transitory nature of his fame and saying that he exists in the present only through projections of his posthumous mask.

Let's start with the title

Interestingly, "The Future of the Statues" is a title invented not by René Magritte himself, but by Paul Nougat. This happened quite rarely - although the artist loved to invite friends to brainstorm together, in the end he usually settled on his own versions of the title. In this case, to all appearances, Nougé hit the mark, but what exactly is meant by "the future of the statues"? The fact is that posthumous masks of famous people were idealized after the fact for their subsequent reproduction and mass distribution. It is these changes made to the cast, in this case of Napoleon's face, that give it the status of a sculpture. Magritte's contribution to this work, on the other hand, lies in the pictorial part of the work. He essentially painted a readymade - and here it's time to remember the Renaissance argument about the superiority of one art form over another. In the case of the series "The Future of Statues," its title asserts that painting, subject to the hand of the artist, will eventually surpass sculpture, in the particular case represented by the product of industrial production.

Is it worth looking for meaning?

More than the first generation of art critics has been trying to find hidden ideas and motives in the works of Magritte. Nevertheless, the artist himself, unlike other surrealists, was an opponent of theories of the unconscious, and about the meanings and symbols in his work he said the following:

"My paintings are visible images that hide nothing; they evoke a sense of mystery, and indeed, when you see one of my paintings, you ask yourself the simple question, "What does it mean?" It means nothing, because mystery means nothing; it is incomprehensible."

Perhaps the attraction of Magritte's works is that everyone can search for his or her own meanings in them, or not at all.

Where are the works of the Future of Statues series

One of the sculptures from the Future of Statues series is in the British Tate Gallery, another is in Germany's Wilhelm Lembruck Museum, a third was sold at Christie's in 2007, and the whereabouts of the fourth are unknown.

Text prepared by Elina Bagmet