Elective Affinities (painting)
Encyclopedia
Elective Affinities is a 1933
painting by the Belgian
surrealist
René Magritte
. The title is taken from the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
book Elective Affinities
.
Magritte had the following to say about this work:
1933 in art
This article is part of List of years in Art-Events:*Closure of the Bauhaus.*Black Mountain College founded by John Andrew Rice.*The mural, Man at the Crossroads, by Diego Rivera, is removed from the Rockefeller Center in New York because it contained a portrait of Lenin.*Käthe Kollwitz is forced...
painting by the Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
René Magritte
René Magritte
René François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...
. The title is taken from the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
book Elective Affinities
Elective Affinities
Elective Affinities , also translated under the title Kindred by Choice, is the third novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1809. The title is taken from a scientific term once used to describe the tendency of chemical species to combine with certain substances or species in preference...
.
Magritte had the following to say about this work:
-
- One night, I woke up in a room in which a cage with a bird sleeping in it had been placed. A magnificent error caused me to see an egg in the cage, instead of the vanished bird. I then grasped a new and astonishing poetic secret, for the shock which I experienced had been provoked precisely by the affinity of two objects -- the cage and the egg -- to each other, whereas previously this shock had been caused by my bringing together two objects that were unrelated.