The Palace of Curtains, III is one in a series of paintings by René Magritte that explores the resonances between words and images. Two polygons with nearly identical profiles lean against a wood-paneled wall. Each shape frames a depiction of sky, one with a painted representation, the other with language (the French word ciel, meaning sky).
Magritte was fond of unexpected pairings between interior and exterior scenes, as with the patch of blue sky against the finite backdrop of the wall. Placing words in absurd or unexpected contexts, Magritte challenged the conventional use of language. Though the use of text in his word-picture pairings may seem incongruous, Magritte viewed all language as arbitrary: “An image is not so wedded to its name,” said Magritte, “that one cannot find another which suits it better.”
Gallery label from Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938 , September 28, 2013–January 12, 2014.
In this work Magritte presents the equivalent visual and verbal signs for the concept ciel (French for "sky") in two identically shaped panels: on the left in a trompe l’oeil depiction of an atmospheric patch of blue sky, captured and brought down to earth, and on the right with the word ciel in black script, austerely flat and precise. Set in a non–descript interior with a wood–paneled wall and floor, the angular framed panels of this word-image pair recall the backs of stretched canvases leaning against a wall, yet the deep shadows they cast suggest freestanding objects, propped up by some invisible mechanism. In combination, these puzzling components probe the complex relationship between words and images, as well as the tropes and conventions of painterly representation.
Provenance Research Project
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Ruth Peters, Brussels. By 1933
E.L.T. (Edouard Léon Théodore) Mesens (1903-1971), Brussels and London (from 1938). - 1954
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York; and then private collection of Sidney and Harriet Janis. Acquired from E.L.T. Mesens, 1954 - 1967
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection, 1967
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René Magritte
Belgian, 1898–1967 14 works onlineClouds, pipes, bowler hats, and green apples: these remain some of the most immediately recognizable icons of René Magritte, the Belgian painter and well-known Surrealist .
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