Personal Values

Although he is often grouped with Surrealists such as Salvador Dalí,Max Ernst,and Yves Tanguy,Magritte took a somewhat different approach to painting.Rather than creating fantasy imagery,he evoked the strangeness and ambiguity latent in reality.“I don’t paint visions,” he once said.“To the best of my capability,by painterly means,I describe objects—and the mutual relationship of objects—in such a way that none of our habitual concepts or feelings is necessarily linked with them.”

虽然人们常常把马格利特看作是与萨尔瓦多·达利、马克斯·恩斯特和伊夫·唐吉等一样的超现实主义画家，但马格利特的画法与他们有所不同。他没有创造幻象，而是唤起了现实中潜在的陌生感和模糊性。“我画的不是幻觉。”他曾表示，“我是以绘画的方式尽全力描述现实事物——以及事物之间的相互关系——在我们惯常的观念或感觉中，不一定会把它们这样联系在一起。”

2 Here,the artist presents a room filled with familiar things,but he gives human proportions to these formerly unassuming props of everyday life,creating a sense of disorientation and incongruity.Inside and out are inverted by his rendering of a skyscape on the interior walls of the room.The familiar becomes unfamiliar,the normal,strange; Magritte creates a paradoxical world that is,in his own words,“a defiance of common sense.”

2 马格利特在画中呈现了一个摆满各种熟悉事物的房间，但他将这些原本不起眼的日常生活用品画成了与人一般大小，让观者感觉困惑和不协调。他在房间内壁上绘制的天空景观颠倒了房间内外。熟悉变成陌生，正常变成怪异——马格利特创造了一个矛盾的世界，用他自己的话说，这是“对常识的无视”。

3 When he first saw this painting,Magritte’s dealer,Alexander Iolas,was violently upset by it.Tellingly,the artist replied,“In my picture,the comb (and the other objects as well)has specifically lost its ‘social character,’ it has become an object of useless luxury,which may,as you say,leave the spectator feeling helpless or even make him ill.Well,this is proof of the effectiveness of the picture.” ■

3 马格利特的经纪人亚历山大·伊欧拉斯初见此画非常不安。马格利特曾明确地对他解释：“在我的画中，梳子（其他物品也一样）显然已失去它的‘社会属性’，而成为一种无用的奢侈品——正如你所说，这可能会让观者感到无助甚或不适。不过，这恰恰证明这幅画发挥作用了。” □