Interesting how in trying to produce paintings devoid of style, Magritte inadvertently established one of the most iconic and memorable painting aesthetics. Great video.

you have insanely high production value for 2k subs

Hmm…. It’s almost as if it is an argument against Plato. “The prohibited reproduction” The title alone evokes rebellion. We cannot see the back of our heads and the only way we ever could is with a reproduction, like the figure in the painting. Does that mean the back of our head isn’t real? And by gazing upon the painting, someone behind you would see you as you see the painting, and someone could stand behind them, and so on. Each observer seeing in someone what they can never see themselves. Almost like the artist found this little glitch in Plato’s philosophy that repeats into eternity. It’s as if he is saying art or “reproduction” is the only way to know the unknowable.

You make subtle and difficult concepts clear in your lucid presentations!

Not in the best financial situation presently, but I hope I can better support the channel in the near future.

Can't get enough Magritte stuff. I really need to do more research of him. Fantastic video!

great video! i personally think that the book is often overlooked when talking about this piece. the way it is reflected & the subject isnt.. its almost like saying that the type of books we read is a far greater reflection of what type of a person we are than any image or reflection in the mirror of us. looks are deceptive.. beautiful faces could be the most terrible ones. its can also be interpreted as.. a book makes you REFLECT on yourself by removing you from the moment & making you look at yourself from a foreign perspective- thus the subject looking at himself. welp thats just me. cheers!

i love the connection with Plato's Book X! Great analysis!

Got an unexpected semantic satiation of the word "bed"

Apart from all the thought-provoking discussion, this video suddenly made me realise the inspiration for the cover of Gary Numan’s album “The Pleasure Principle”!

love the commentary on this, very informative and relaxing

This video was quite well packaged and researched - subscribed! I've loved this painting for a long time (even have a print in my room) but was okay with not totally understanding it. I do think however that art can get closer to the truth than other 'real' documents.

Thank you for another deeply researched and beautifully produced documentary. Your channel is my all-time favorite. I just realized from this video that your French accent is also impeccable-my untrained ear suggests: Québécois? ☺️

Highly informative and well produced video; great to watch !

The only thing I can say to this video is....bravo! I had to study Magritte for an arts foundation course and you covered more in six minutes than my tutor did in six months.

Specifically, Plato believed in his Theory of Forms, that the purest abstraction of any given thing or idea is the true "Form" of something, and that all that we will see of them is a shadow of it. He used the metaphor of the cave to detail this relationship. Humanity was represented in a cave. Inside the cave, there is giant stone, facing a wall, and behind that stone, a fire and some shadow puppeteers. Humanity is shown as chained to the wall-facing stone, and that all of our experience is merely a shadow puppet version of the truth. The people do not know of the fire or the puppets or the puppeteers, only what they see on the wall, and they only know it as true. He theorized that there would come a time when mankind would be freed, en masse or individually, from this stone, and would discover the truth of their situation. Of course, none of the others would be believe the ones who were freed. The world to them is shadow puppets, to tell them they are just shadow puppets is to tell them their world is a lie. The only way to learn the truth is to see it yourself, and the truth, according to Plato, is that there exists perfect forms of abstractions, and only outside of this cave can they all be seen. "Bedness," for example from the video. A Bed, and all that it implies, in it's purest abstractions, made realized. This would be it's Form. Of course, humanity is still incapable of realizing such a thing. We can make beds, we can make damn great beds, with the best cushions and mattresses and pillows and frames, the best night sleep the human body can ask for, but it will never fully be "Bed." This is why Plato also viscerally despised artists. He believed that they served only to further obfuscate Forms, to perpetuate the growing homogeny of abstraction, to associate Forms with other abstractions completely alien to them. To associate Red with Blood, for example, is to take away from "Redness," the purest idea of the color of Red. To associate Blood with Red takes away from the idea of "Bloodness," and the complex meanings of it, and all that it implies. Injury, life, violence, penance, medicine, they are all implied by Blood, and are inherent to humans interactions with Blood, but all such associations take away from the pure idea of "Bloodness," of the most unique characteristics of what makes blood, blood, and similarly the color Red does not imply any of this on it's own. "Redness" only implies an ever more saturated shade of Red, infinitely redder than itself until no change could ever be discerned. "Bloodness" implies all interactions of blood, all it's characteristics, made infinitely more unique to itself until all that remains is a perfect Form of Blood. To us, they may seem inseparable on any physical level- human blood is Red, but as far as their purest Forms are concerned, they are immutable, and run infinitely parallel, never to intersect, no matter what practical world-shackled meanings could be derived from doing so, and no matter how contradictory these Forms are inherently to each other to do so. He did not despise artists for their art. As imagery and messages to the worldly human race, they do their jobs perfectly, they are simply Art, but Plato's grand cosmic worldview was that art existed to turn pure abstractions of Forms into ever more meaningless noise, to turn "Bedness" into wood frames and cotton throws, and then to turn that into comfort, sadness, sex, dreams, a non-thing in the background of a painting or story. He believed artists eradicated Forms. It was all very Lovecraftian, actually. These days, you could easily disregard Plato as a raving schizophrenic for his Theory of Forms, that there is some meta-truth to all of reality, that there exists pure, infinite realization of all abstractions that the human brain simply cannot fathom in their entirety, and that artists, despite there being a Form of "Artness" somewhere in this fold, were a direct threat to the perception of Forms themselves. Perception as Reality was one of Plato's biggest talking points in regards to art, and how it affects the world. When we collectively agree on an association, instead of the truth as it is, what comes from it? How deeply do we believe in the shadows on the wall?

This is an amazing video! You deserve many more subscribers and views!

the 1939 "Portrait" is actually a "Porktrait". and though it's a stupid pun, i wouldn't be surprized if Magritte thought of it too (it works in french too "Porctrait"). the Belgians have an amazing sense of humour.

Art starts with appreciation and the desire to increase skill. Stopping the clock, concentrating and the enjoyment of the artists own personal expression of truth. It is a need...like breathing...

beautiful analysis of this piece, helping us to understand it and appreciate it with greater depth. Thank you.

Your image editing is itself amazing story-telling.

Brilliant video as usual!

His French is so good!! I can listen to audiobooks with this voice all day

And now you have 89k! I love your videos!

I love enlightening perspectives. Thank you

Out Stealing Horses brought me here. What a high quality video! Thanks for that.

I’ve liked your stuff so far. Some of the best (maybe only) art criticism videos on here.

3:52 - Actually, it's not even that. It's paint applied to a canvas forming the shape of _text_ representing the words "this is not a pipe" under some more paint that might make you think of a pipe.

Merci pour cette explication limpide.

Inspirational content, as always!

Great video and awesome editing!

You don’t even know how much you helped me for university. I am an art student and your videos helped a lot

Wonderfully brief and to the point…

I went to the Magritte exhibition in Brussels a few years ago. I found a lot of the images quite distrubingly violent - but these are a lot less well known than the famous portraits

Excellent, as always. Thanks, man! (In my teaching, I prefer to call a portrait "a fiction" rather than "a lie." It makes me crazy when somebody says that the artist "captured the true character" of the sitter. This is absurd. Walt Whitman stated it well, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large -- I contain multitudes." There is no one "true character." It is very hard to get the student to understand that his/her primary concern is not with the narrative-the objects being painted-but with how to make a PICTURE out of them.)

The thumbnail reeled me in, since this is the very image that was used as a cover for Yumeno Kyuusaku's Dogra Magra.

great analysis!!!

Fantastic, thanks very much.

I certainly learned quite a bit in this video. Now I’m wondering if there’s any significance to “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” or if it was just a book at hand. Probably it means something, but it’s been more than 30 years since I read it and I don’t remember the details. Impressive, nailing the pronunciation of the painting’s title.

If you haven't already, (new subscriber) an in depth look at Andrew Wyeth's, Christina's World might make an interesting video topic. I've been fascinated by Magritte for half my life. In school, I even made a reproduction- I know- of The Kiss, which is yet another piece that obscures the face of his subjects.

Some years ago the National Gallery of Australia bought Magritte's The Lovers. A man and woman looking at each other but their faces are covered in a fabric so they can't actually see each other. It's at once a thrilling painting and immensely disturbing at the same time.

Amazing content, thank you 🙌🏽

Thanks I totally understand it now. Philadelphia USA

Thank you I really appreciated this

I wish you had said more about that book, popular in France at the time. It influenced a lot of later artists, namely, the south pacific and antarctic stories of HP Lovecraft....so Cthulhu.

While watching this, in one of the close-ups of the painting, I noticed something that now makes me want to learn more about Magritte. If, today, you buy a pre-made, stretched canvas at any art supply store, you'll get a surface where the "grain" of the canvas (the alignment of the threads in the cloth) is more or less perpendicular to the edges; i.e. up and down, left to right. However, when Magritte painted this, presumably like most painters at the time (and many still), he prepared and stretched his own canvas. When the video zooms in on this painting you can clearly see that the canvas was stretched at an angle. About 55°. That is so wild to me, because it opens up a whole new dimension of painting that I never even thought about before.

Another incredible video, thank you Sir. Magritte really was a philosopher in painting and of images.

I get the idea. But why call it a "lie" tho? It's someone's portrayal of the idea of a bed, his own truth. It's not like the painter "lie" and shy away from the true meaning of a bed.

Hearing the theory of Plato and how this painting by Magritte may be referencing it gave me a little shock. I had been thinking a short time before viewing it, that only way to get truth of any given time in history may be in the form of its forbidden art. I am working through my complicated and obscured genealogy which has a lot of "dead ends" in the Franco-Prussian war era. Seeing some of the more subversive art of the time gave me a better mental picture of the more hard to imagine features of the life of my ancestors. And as a side note, as much as I love Magritte and the novelty of the Arthur Pym copy in the image, it would creep me out to no end to have this hanging in my library. (but I still want it)

Great job!

I've always seen this painting as aman who has positioned himself and a book, approximating his position in front of a painting of himself in the same position beside the same book, providing this curious illusion for the subject of a second painting from the artist's perspective.

Like all great art, it asks profound existential questions. This process will always be an intensely personal relationship with the viewer.

Excelent video 👏👌

Masterful Masterpiece of art works

I remember going to a dollar store and seeing imitation processed cheese squares. An imitation of a imitation of a product.

Thanks, more understandable to me now ... 😊 What is the point of the book ? And its correct reflection ? And perhaps the choice of this specific novel ... 😬

Awesome!

excelente vídeo.

What about something like an apple? Is a physical apple a rendition of the idea of an apple? I would think not in that there were apples before the words for it came to be. It’s simply named.

Great one

My favorite painting of all time

I knew this looked familiar; the painting is used as the cover for "One-Dimensional Man"

I don't understand this videos interpretation of this painting, but I think that's how Surrealism operates sometimes. Surrealist paintings move like living things

I m new, surprise et très emballée de ton travail !!! J ai mis la tite cloche, BIEn HÂTE DE m éduquer aux peintres, Car je suis moi même artiste peintre autodidacte et je recherche Toujours à agrandir mes horizons en histoire de l art !! Donc merci!!!

Great vid

I interpreted the “it is not a pipe” painting as the Surrealist going against the Bourgeois society. Saying that we will call things what we want and not let it be told to us.

I love he’s paintings beautiful masterful artist

Deep question here - I really enjoyed this thought process; art, or art with reflection being third or fourth removed from the truth. Then as the video ended and the painting was displayed again a thought jarred me, the book isn't reversed. What does that say about the book and its relationship to ideal truth?

*chef's kiss*

May be it's not a mirror but a painting that he's looking at.

This is solid

good content.

Wnikliwa analiza

My drawings and paintings didn't have faces in them either but that was because I couldn't draw faces.

The humour which provokes thought, a staple of Magritte, reminds me of Banksy. I wonder if he was influenced by the Belgian.

I do not sleep on abstract forms. I sleep on beds. The bed that I sleep on is truly a bed. Plato's form-of-a-bed is a reproduction of a reproduction.

The idea being: The sitter (though standing) asked for his portrait; but, impossible to produce, received this artistic reproduction in lieu. Did he actually sit for his, or was this a virtual presence distilled? Each brushstroke compounded, hypothetically, adding essence.

I always love to mess with people, at my art shows. They comment about the subject of a painting and i say "It's not (Fill in subject), it's paint on a surface."

Bravo👏👍

오👍🏻👏 큰 도움이 됩니다 바로 구독하고 갑니다🤗

Wouldn't it have been better if the book was Plato's Republic?

I just think he wanted to paint something that people would be trying to explain almost 90 years later; in that he succeeded. But was it worth succeeding at? I'm sure people will spend almost a century discussing that too.

Dear 'Canvas' person. fabulous video on this painting. I have a question: how can I get permission to show images of Magritte's works in a text I am writing. I am told that I cannot show any image of a painting by Magritte if it has been altered in any way. But your wonderful video illustrates how effective it is to be able to show altered versions (like when you 'erased' James' image from inside the frame of the mirror).

The actual object slept upon is the bed. The idea is not a bed, the image is not a bed, nor are the letters B E D a bed. Just because someone says something does not mean they are correct, and when an incorrect notions floats about w/o challenge it becomes a bad thing, for art and life.

It’s easier to tell you’re Canadian from your French pronunciation than your English pronunciation. 😁 (En tout cas, merci pour la vidéo.)

Where Plato is _wrong_ is: you can’t lay down and sleep on the concept of Bed. So if a bed purpose is to be able to sleep in it, the concept of Bed is false. Plato wasn’t really wrong but his assumption creates a paradox.

👌

The face in the hair is cool. kind of looks like a warewolf or dogish cat or an eletist dark mask. the 2 reproductions* look like a two different figuers bcause the hair is not the ssme where the one eye would be.

I wonder how Plato would feel about biscuits?

It is said, in the Dao De Ching, "The Dao which can be spoken of, is not the true Dao." In Zen Buddhism, it is likewise said, "One can only _point_ to the moon."

I love your francee

6:26 so, basically the rapresentation of somthing abstract/simply not visible in everyday's reality is more likely to get close to that idea than a realistic rapresentation of reality is to the idea of that reality... cool ig

And since u didn't want me u passed me Back to rick

It was actually just Magritte's way of saying he thought Edward James was totally unfuckable.

I came here for an biology class but ended up with a art class

How do you know it’s a mirror? What if it isn’t (and of course it isn’t).

It's a good video. I was going to leave a snarky comment but others have left such thoughtful comments. To me the argument about "truth" falls apart if truth is the concept of an object. If the mental creation of a "bed" = truth, it is very hard to sleep upon. In fact one would experience the cold truth of sleeping upon the ground. I would rather have the second reproduction of "truth", the carpenter's conception, complete with soft mattresses, fluffy quilts...etc. (This may be an ignorant comment. If so, call me a philistine! LOL!)

Plato was wrong. :)

Your french is really good, do you speak it?

I’m commenting only a couple minutes into this video, but I’ll bet photographer has reproduced that painting without editing, just with two strategically placed mirrors. Heck, it can even be reproduced as an interactive art installation.