Bowdoin College Homepage
Bowdoin College Museum of Art Logo and Wordmark

Advanced Search
Preview image of work. oil on canvas,  Le Banquet 12978

2003.11.49

Recommend keywords

Help us make our collections more accessible by providing keywords to describe this artwork. The BCMA uses the Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus to provide consistent keywords. Enter a keyword in the field below and you will be prompted with a list of possible matching AAT preferred terms.

 
 

Le Banquet

Export record as: Plain text | JSON | CDWA-Lite | VRA Core 4

Artist

René Magritte (Lessines, Belgium, 1898 - 1967, Schaerbeek, Belgium)

Title

Le Banquet

Creation Date

1957

Century

20th century

Dimensions

12 11/16 in. x 17 13/16 in. (32.23 cm x 45.24 cm)

Object Type

painting

Creation Place

Europe, Belgium

Medium and Support

oil on canvas

Credit Line

Bequest of William H. Alexander, in memory of his friend, Howard Hoyt Shiras, M.D.

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

2003.11.49

This variant of one of Magritte’s most captivating landscapes invites viewers to ponder what appears to be a sunset with a stand of fastidiously rendered trees silhouetted against the evening sky. However, as the artist described in a letter, the “red sun is visible on the mass of the trees hiding it.” While this effect is disorienting, the painting will unfailingly cast a spell on viewers who will not soon forget the experience of pictorial conventions unsettled and the workings of their own minds exposed. When speaking about the painting The Son of a Man, which featured an apple blocking the face of a bowler-hatted man, Magritte said, “Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.” Serving up the landscape and the setting sun as an impossible simultaneity, Le Banquet offers a Surrealist feast for the senses and nurtures the mind as well.