The Perfume of the Abyss 1928

René Magritte created this disquieting vision of towers perched on a cliff edge with oil paint, a substance that’s been used to build up imaginary worlds for centuries. The paint looks thin, almost scrubbed into the canvas, and the colours are muted greys and browns. I wonder what Magritte was thinking as he painted it? Maybe he was picturing the end of the world, or the collapse of civilization, but even so he would still take the time to put a castle at the top of the cliff. Maybe it’s a symbol of hope, or maybe it’s just there to make us ask questions. The towers themselves look like they've been simplified to their bare, essential forms, and that brickwork has been minimized, and this reductive style reminds me of some of Giorgio de Chirico’s stark landscapes. These guys are both speaking a similar language of dreams and anxieties, and this is a testament to how artists are always building on each other’s ideas, remixing the vocabulary of painting to express something new.