The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 28, 2024

The Human Condition

The Human Condition

1945
(Belgian, 1898–1967)
Sheet: 42.2 x 32.2 cm (16 5/8 x 12 11/16 in.)
© C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

During World War II, when this drawing was made, René Magritte focused on beauty in contrast to the chaos of the time and favored calm scenes and light colors in his work.

Description

This drawing belongs to a series in which René Magritte depicted an easel before a window. Each features a canvas that exactly replicates the landscape beyond it, inviting questions about the boundaries between art and reality. Magritte juxtaposed a highly realistic style and unexpected imagery to evoke the subconscious and question the experience of time and space. Of his Human Condition series, he wrote that he wanted to place the viewer “inside the room in the picture and, at the same time, conceptually outside in the real landscape.”
  • ?-1992
    Lockwood Thompson, Cleveland, OH, bequeathed to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    1992-
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Ottinger, Didier. Magritte. Exh. Cat. Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1996. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 146
    Ades, Dawn. The Color of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art. Exh. Cat. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2011. Mentioned: p. 325; Reproduced: p. 311
    Cassin, Barbara. "The Painter-King." In Magritte: The Treachery of Images. Didier Ottinger, ed., 114-141. Exh. Cat. Munich: Prestel, 2017. Reproduced and mentioned: p. 119.
    Salsbury, Britany. “Open Windows.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 61, no. 1 (Winter 2021): 26. Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 26.
  • Stories From Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).
    The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art. Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (organizer) (May 28-October 2, 2011).
    Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008).
    René Magritte. Montréal Museum of Fine Arts (organizer) (June 20-October 27, 1996).
    Selected Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 9-April 11, 1993).
  • {{cite web|title=The Human Condition|url=false|author=René Magritte|year=1945|access-date=28 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1992.274