
© Estate of René Magritte / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / SODRAC, Montreal
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of René Magritte / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / SODRAC, Montreal
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of René Magritte / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / SODRAC, Montreal
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.
René Magritte
Belgian, 1898-1967
La Voix des airs (The Voice of Space), 1928
oil on canvas
support: 25 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches (64.77 x 49.53 cm); framed: 33 x 27 x 3 inches (83.82 x 68.58 x 7.62 cm)
Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Albert H. Tracy Fund, by exchange, and George B. and Jenny R. Mathews Fund, 1976
1976:13
More Details
Inscriptions
Provenance
Private collection, Paris;sold to the Museum of Modern Art, 1936;
to Olivier Bernier, by January 7, 1976;
consigned to James Goodman Gallery by May 1976;
sold to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, September 27, 1976
Class
Work Type
This information may change due to ongoing research. Glossary of Terms
Surrealist René Magritte is best known for creating unusual compositions that are wonderfully strange in their illustrative simplicity. The imagery in The Voice of Space is reminiscent of the region of Belgium where Magritte grew up—the Pays Noir (Black Country). The painting’s backdrop references the slopes of iron slag that dotted the landscape, and the sky above the area was often gray. The floating forms were inspired by the bells hung on horses’ collars, the sound of which Magritte remembered reverberating through the night air over great distances. Slits in the spheres reflect the artist’s obsession with concealment and the mystery of human experience, which, for him, could not be fully explained. Magritte described his paintings as “visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery, and indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, ’What does that mean?’ It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing, it is unknowable.”
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Other Works by This Artist
- Les Travaux d' Alexandre (The Labors of Alexander) ,
- La Philosophie et la peinture de Rene Magritte (Volume I) ,
- Untitled from the portfolio La Philosophie de la peinture de Rene Magritte (Volume I) ,
- Untitled from the portfolio La Philosophie de la peinture de Rene Magritte (Volume I) ,
- Untitled from the portfolio La Philosophie de la peinture de Rene Magritte (Volume I) ,
- Untitled from the portfolio La Philosophie de la peinture de Rene Magritte (Volume I) ,
- Untitled from the portfolio La Philosophie de la peinture de Rene Magritte (Volume I) ,
- Untitled from the portfolio La Philosophie de la peinture de Rene Magritte (Volume I) ,
- Untitled from the portfolio La Philosophie de la peinture de Rene Magritte (Volume I) ,
- Untitled from the portfolio La philosophie de la peinture de Rene Magritte (Volume I) ,
- Untitled from the portfolio La Philosophie de la peinture de Rene Magritte (Volume I) ,
- Untitled from the portfolio La Philosophie et la peinture de Rene Magritte (Volume I) ,
Surrealism
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