art.wikisort.org - Painting

Golconda (French: Golconde) is an oil painting on canvas by Belgian surrealist René Magritte, painted in 1953. It is usually housed at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas.

Golconda
Artist	René Magritte
Year	1953
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	81 cm × 100 cm (31.9 in × 39.37 in)
Location	The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas

The piece depicts a scene of "raining men", nearly identical to each other dressed in dark overcoats and bowler hats, who seem to be either falling down like rain drops, floating up like helium balloons, or just stationed in mid-air as no movement or motion is implied. The backdrop features red-roofed buildings and a mostly blue partly cloudy sky, lending credence to the theory that the men are not raining. The men are equally spaced in a lattice, facing the viewpoint and receding back in rhombic grid layers.

Magritte lived in a similar suburban environment, and dressed in a similar fashion. The bowler hat was a common feature of much of his work, and appears in paintings such as The Son of Man.

Charly Herscovici, who was bequeathed copyright on the artist's works, commented on Golconda:

Magritte was fascinated by the seductiveness of images. Ordinarily, you see a picture of something and you believe in it, you are seduced by it; you take its honesty for granted. But Magritte knew that representations of things can lie. These images of men aren't men, just pictures of them, so they don't have to follow any rules. This painting is fun, but it also makes us aware of the falsity of representation.[1]

One interpretation is that Magritte is demonstrating the line between individuality and group association, and how it is blurred. All of these men are dressed the same, have the same bodily features and are all floating/falling. This leaves one to look at the men as a group. Whereas if one looks at each person, one can predict that they may be completely different from another figure.

As was often the case with Magritte's works, the title Golconda was found by his poet friend Louis Scutenaire. Golkonda is a ruined city in the state of Telangana, India, near Hyderabad, which from the mid-14th century until the end of the 17th was the capital of two successive kingdoms; the fame it acquired through being the center of the region's legendary diamond industry was such that its name remains, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "a synonym for 'mine of wealth'."

Magritte included a likeness of Scutenaire in the painting – his face is used for the large man by the chimney of the house on the right of the picture.

References

External links

• Interview with Charly Herscovici
• In Rushdie's book, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights: "In the Menil Collection gallery in Houston, Texas, a shrewd curator named Christof Pantikrator suddenly understood for the first time the prophetic nature of Rene Magritte's masterwork, Golconda, ... ." Page 161–162.

На других языках

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[de] Golconda (Bild)

Golconda (französisch Golconde) ist der Titel eines Gemäldes, das vom belgischen Surrealisten René Magritte im Jahr 1953 geschaffen wurde. Das mit Öl auf Leinwand gemalte Bild hat die Maße 80 × 100 cm und befindet sich heute in der Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, USA. Es gilt als eines der bedeutendsten Gemälde des Surrealismus.

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- [en] Golconda (Magritte)

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[fr] Golconde (Magritte)

Golconde est un tableau de René Magritte peint en 1953. Il en existe plusieurs versions dont l'une fait partie de la Menil Collection à Houston. Une esquisse de petite taille est l'une des nombreuses œuvres du legs Scutenaire-Hamoir aux Musées royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique à Bruxelles.

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[it] Golconda (Magritte)

Golconda (in francese Golconde) è un dipinto di René Magritte, eseguito nel 1953 e conservato nella Menil Collection di Houston. Il nome dell'opera, suggeritagli da Louis Scutenaire, fa riferimento all'omonima città indiana Golconda. Per la presenza di enormi giacimenti di diamanti, questo luogo divenne in passato sinonimo di incredibile ricchezza presso gli europei, per poi essere ridotto in una condizione di totale abbandono.

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[ru] Голконда (картина)

«Голконда» (фр. Golconde) — картина бельгийского сюрреалиста Рене Магритта, написанная масляными красками на холсте в 1953 году. Традиционно она хранится в Коллекции Менил, в Хьюстоне (штат Техас, США).

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