青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

The Surrealist master René Magritte (1898–1967) is acclaimed as one of the greatest Belgian artists of the twentieth century. This collection, printed in full color, offers a carefully curated assemblage of works by Magritte including many not found elsewhere—works that liberate our thinking about reality, common sense, and intellectual concepts.

A rambunctious childhood; his mother’s suicide; his encounter with his first love and future wife, Georgette; his student years spent steeped in Futurism and Cubism; the flowering of his Surrealism; his pursuit of Impressionism and Fauvism during the little-known dark days of the wartime 1940s; his steady and regular efforts to deepen his art in his last years . . . This artist who led a mostly commonplace life that might seem much the same as anyone else’s painted in a largely flat style that seemed to belong to no one in particular, and yet managed to leave behind a wealth of fiercely individual works that enthrall us to this day. An astounding 400 of those works are brought together in this book, tracing Magritte’s lifelong interrogation of words, of concepts, of images.

The author is a young new curator, art historian, and Magritte expert who has worked at the Magritte Museum in Brussels and who currently participates in multiple projects related to the artist. The 400 images have been carefully selected from a total of 1,700 works through her scholarly eyes, and are presented in Japanese through collaboration with the original publisher in Magritte’s homeland of Belgium. Here is a must-read book for art fans that conveys Magritte’s career on a scale like never before!

This is the translated Japanese edition of a book originally published in Belgium in 2021 by Ludion.

Julie Waseige is an art historian and curator who graduated in art history from the Université libre de Bruxelles in 2012. A scientific collaborator at the Magritte Museum in Brussels from 2013 to 2016, she now contributes freelance to several projects focused on Magritte.