Advertisment for "Norine" 1925

René Magritte created this advertisement for "Norine" using gouache and watercolor, and the mood is so enigmatic! I can imagine him dabbing on the ochre with a small brush, conjuring the geometric abstraction in the foreground. What's so striking is the mix of graphic, hard-edged shapes with more softly rendered areas, like the hills. Magritte builds up planes of color, allowing the white of the paper to act as negative space, while simultaneously allowing the shapes to create volume and depth. The woman herself is so stiff and elegant! And those arms! What's she thinking, and what might Magritte have been thinking as he painted her? The dress is a bright, almost alarming red, and the vertical embellishments give it a totemic quality. All of this is going on in an advertisement... What a thought! There is such an intensity of vision, that it makes me think about the ongoing conversation between painters across the ages. Artists have always inspired one another to see the world anew, and in surprising ways.