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Today at the Museum

November 20, 2009

In Pursuit of a Masterpiece

1 – 2 p.m.

The Promenades of Euclid
Title:The Promenades of Euclid
Artist:René Magritte
Date:1955
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:64 1/8 x 51 1/8 in. (162.88 x 129.86 cm) (canvas) 73 7/8 x 60 7/8 x 4 in. ...
Creation Place:Europe, Belgium
Credit Line:The William Hood Dunwoody Fund
Image Copyright:©Charly Herscovici, Brussels / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Accession Number:68.3
Location:G376
Surrealism was an art of fantasy, dream, and the unconscious, delving into the recesses of the human psyche to discover mysterious, bizarre, and often disturbing images. René Magritte, however, was a Surrealist painter more fascinated by puzzles and paradoxes than by the nature of the unconscious. The Promenades of Euclid presents the age-old problem of illusion versus reality. In this witty picture within a picture, the canvas in front of the window seems to exactly replicate the section of city it blocks from view. But does it? Could the twin forms of tower and street exist only in the artist's imagination? Or do we view the actual city through a transparent canvas?