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Lot Essay
On 27 May 1933, an exhibition dedicated to the art of René Magritte opened at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Featuring over fifty paintings by the artist, the majority of which had been created during the crucial and innovative years of 1926-1929, this show proved to be a revelation to Magritte’s enthusiasts and supporters in Belgium. Many of these works had never been exhibited publicly before and, seen together in this way, they represented a striking and comprehensive overview of his pioneering early Surrealist vision. Among the visitors to this short-lived show, which ran for just ten days, was the Surrealist poet Paul Colinet. Profoundly impacted by the experience, the young writer subsequently created a rapidly executed, lyrical sketch in pen, inspired by the images that he had seen. This would provide the germ of the idea for Magritte’s enigmatic composition La reconnaissance infinie, painted in the immediate aftermath of the exhibition, and reveals the rich creative dialogue that existed between the artist and the writer during the 1930s.
Colinet had first become involved with the Belgian Surrealist group in 1932, following an introduction by the poet Marcel Lecomte. A civil servant by day, his unusual, finely-chiselled texts proved immensely popular with the avant-garde writers and artists involved in the movement—Louis Scutenaire christened him the ‘Don Juan of words’—and he quickly became acquainted with many of its leading figures (quoted in A. Danchev with S. Whitfield, Magritte: A Life, London, 2020, p. 274). Colinet and Magritte forged a particularly close friendship, which would prove to be one of the most important and creatively fruitful within the group. He innately understood the artist’s sense of humour, and became a sounding board for ideas that were percolating in Magritte’s imagination. ‘Colinet knew the secret of a warm, disquieting humour,’ the artist explained, his love of practical jokes in particular appealing to Magritte’s own wit (quoted in J. Walravens, ‘Meeting with Magritte,’ 1962; quoted in K. Rooney and E. Plattner, René Magritte: Selected Writings, Richmond, 2016, p. 199).
With an eye for the absurd, and an expressive, tongue-in-cheek approach to language, he also provided Magritte with titles for several notable works, expanding the poetic potential of the artist’s Surrealist scenes, as well as providing visual and written prompts for potential new compositions that the artist found particularly stimulating. In this way, Colinet was responsible for introducing a series of important and unexpected motifs to Magritte’s work during the 1930s, such as Ceci est un morceau de fromage (circa 1936, Sylvester, no. 681; The Menil Collection, Houston), in which a painting of a slice of brie was placed within an ornate glass display container, and the concept of the ‘portrait manqué’ or ‘failed portrait,’ which underpinned Magritte’s now famous depictions of Edward James from 1937, La reproduction interdite and Le principe du plaisir (Sylvester, nos. 436 and 443; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, and Private collection).
La reconnaissance infinie explores the visual potential of a mysterious sphere, its surface smooth and unblemished, its form seemingly weighty and solid, even as it floats gently in mid-air. This puzzling object had appeared sporadically across Magritte’s oeuvre through the 1920s in various guises and forms, from a monumental sculptural feature balanced atop a narrow wall in the cubist Baigneuse of 1925 (Sylvester, no. 64; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi), to a collection of diminutive, heavy looking globes in Les signes du soir (Sylvester, no. 100; Private collection), one of which appears to have rolled straight out from the landscape painting, towards the viewer along the sloping, corrugated surface. In Le paysage secret (1928, Sylvester, no. 242; Private collection), meanwhile, the orb is set free from gravity, hovering in the air behind a bank of trees in a manner that echoes Magritte’s pictures of floating sleigh bells or grelots in Les fleurs de l’abime and La voix des airs (1928, Sylvester, nos. 240 and 241; Private collection and AKG Art Museum, Buffalo).
However, it is perhaps La vie secrète of 1928 (Sylvester, no. 290; Kunsthaus Zurich) that holds the closest affinity to La reconnaissance infinie. In this work, Magritte allows the levitating sphere to become the sole protagonist of the image, its mysterious form floating, unsupported in a plain, shadowy interior. With its bold red hue, elegant cornicing abutting the ceiling and subtle skirting bordering the wooden floor, the left hand wall grounds us in a familiar domestic space and provides us with a subtle sense of scale. However, the adjoining wall appears to have disappeared, perhaps removed by an unseen hand, opening the room onto a deep, black void. As a result, the nature of the sphere is rendered even more complex—is this a planet and other celestial body that has floated into the room, or perhaps an unmoored balloon, the likes of which Magritte had been fascinated with as a child, or a large, lightweight ball that has been launched into the room, and captured mid-bounce. As David Sylvester has pointed out, La vie secrète is in many ways reminiscent of the pittura metafisica paintings of Giorgio Morandi and Carlo Carrà, in which unusual, unexpected objects and pure geometric forms were arranged together in strange groupings within a box-like space. Already a loyal devotee of Giorgio de Chirico’s metaphysical paintings, Magritte may have discovered such works among the reproductions featured in the periodical Valori plastici.
In La reconnaissance infinie, the large, delicately variegated orb is surmounted by a bemused-looking figure, one hand tucked in his pocket nonchalantly, while his other arm shields his eyes from the sunlight as he strains to see into the distance. Glimpsed through a window, the sphere and its passenger traverse a steep, narrow mountainous pass, the dark, folding, rippling terrain reminiscent of the slag heaps that dotted the landscape around Magritte’s childhood home of Hainaut. The appearance of this unknown, anonymous figure seems all the more peculiar due to the fact that he is otherwise a typically ordinary gentleman, cleanshaven and neatly dressed in a simple grey suit, replete with shirt and tie, the kind of figure one might encounter on the street. Magritte often deployed such familiar, everyday characters in his paintings, their presence heightening the unsettling atmosphere of his scenes and rendering them profoundly strange in the process.
Viewed through an existential lens, the unexpected appearance of this man atop the globe may also be seen as a subversive visual prompt by Magritte, deployed to encourage his viewers to question and reconsider their own understanding of their position within the universe. ‘Perhaps I put men where you don’t expect to see them,’ Magritte would later explain. ‘But then man is in the sky, too, isn’t he?… Man is in the sky. The earth travels in the sky, and man is there on the earth…’ (‘Interview for Life’; quoted in A. Blavier, René Magritte: Ecrits complets, Paris, 2009, p. 610). In this way, the figure may be interpreted as a mirror image of our own selves, as we struggle to comprehend our position, simultaneously grounded in the earth and our immediate surroundings, yet at the same time, floating on a planet as it hurtles through space.
Enhancing this effect, Magritte places the viewer directly into the universe of La reconnaissance infinie by including the edge of a window within the composition, framing the view so that we are a participant in the bizarre goings-on. The angle of the cornicing, paired with the window ledge in the foreground, reinforces the sharply receding perspective of the mountains and the diminutive scale of the man atop the sphere, further emphasising the contrast between our own position and that of the floating figure. In this way, the painting appears to fulfil one of the central tenets of Magritte’s unique Surrealist vision. As he explained to Colinet: ‘The feeling we experience while looking at a picture cannot be separated from either the picture or ourselves. The feeling, the picture, we, are joined in our mystery’ (letter to P. Colinet; quoted in H. Torczyner, Magritte: Ideas and Images, New York, 1977, p. 220).
Here, the figure looks off into the distance, his gaze directed away from the window where the viewer watches from, and instead trained on something that remains outside of our field of vision. This subtle adjustment adds further layers of mystery to the scene, leaving the viewer with an unknowable conundrum as they ponder what may have drawn his eye and captured his attention. The attitude and actions of the man may also tie into the play on words featured in the title, the French word reconnaissance having the same definition as in English of watchfulness, but with the added double meaning of ‘recognition.’ Although the former translation is apt for someone watching out over a great distance, the latter invokes the moment of recognition when something comes into focus and our understanding of its nature solidifies and settles—perhaps the figure has perceived the ‘mystery’ which Magritte had described to Colinet. Indeed, this character may have been a reflection of Colinet himself, his reaction a nod to his own moment of recognition and revelation within the context of the 1933 exhibition, as he discovered and absorbed the painter’s uncanny, challenging Surrealist visions.
The gravity-defying position of the sphere, meanwhile, appears to invoke the moon, and in particular the imaginative illustrations that accompanied Jules Verne’s seminal sci-fi novel De la terre à la lune when it was published. Clearly pleased with their collaboration on La reconnaissance infinie and the poetic potential of the orb, Magritte wrote in a postcard to Colinet dated 1934: ‘The subject of my next picture is the Moon. What we have to do is find something that really makes us feel we are on a spherical world. If the moon illuminates a scene, it mustn’t be ranked as an indifferent spectator or a mere go-between, or simply have a picturesque role. A trap for the moon, an incantation, a lunar mirror—these give a slight idea of the sort of thing we should be looking for. Will you be kind enough to start when you have a moment to spare?’ (quoted in S. Whitfield, Magritte, exh. cat., The Hayward Gallery, London, 1992, p. 31).
Sadly, this fervent creative exchange came to an abrupt end towards the end of the decade, as the friendship between Colinet and Magritte broke down, following the artist’s discovery that his wife Georgette had been having an affair with Colinet. Shocked by this betrayal, Magritte banned Colinet from his home and the men barely spoke to one another for twelve years, the rift seemingly unresolvable. However, their friendship gradually healed, and Colinet took on the role of collaborator and supporter once again throughout the 1950s, reporting things he saw or overheard to the artist, and working with Magritte on ideas for various compositions. In an interview broadcast on Belgian radio in 1954, on the occasion of Magritte’s major retrospective at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the artist was accompanied by Colinet, who vividly explained to the reporter the enduring power and captivating mystery of the artist’s paintings: ‘I had the thought that no one had ever seen these unique, fascinating pictures until today. It would be too facile to say that they have been seen merely because they have been registered by the eye… or that we have had a few odd ideas or fantasies about them. Nevertheless, extravagant as this idea may sound, I feel it is worthwhile, since it makes me realise how demanding these pictures are; how, because of their content, we can never see them enough’ (quoted in ‘Interview with Magritte by Jean Stévo (I),’ broadcast on Belgian radio, 12 May 1954; reproduced in Rooney and Plattner, op. cit., 2016, p. 158).
Shortly after its completion, La reconnaissance infinie was acquired directly from Magritte by Claude Spaak, a playwright and author who was also closely involved with Belgian Surrealism. Spaak had met the artist in 1931 through the intercession of E.L.T. Mesens, and he would become an integral advocate for Magritte’s art during this period, including him in numerous shows at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where Spaak was head of the society for auxiliary exhibitions. When the stock from Galerie Le Centaure was liquidated in 1932, Spaak banded together with Mesens to purchase a large group of over 150 works from Magritte’s early oeuvre. Even though he had contributed half the funds, Spaak took only a small portion of the group, selecting particular compositions that he felt spoke to him. He subsequently became concerned about how much of Magritte’s time was being spent on his activities with Studio Dongo—the commercial design company that the artist had co-founded with his brother Paul in order to make ends meet after returning to Brussels from Paris—and decided to provide the artist with a stipend. He also commissioned several works directly from him, including family portraits of himself, his wife Suzanne, and his children, Bazou and Pilette.
Spaak’s financial and creative support proved crucial during this period, allowing Magritte the time to devote to his painting and develop his poetic Surrealist vision in bold new directions. In the process, he came to own a number of masterworks by the artist, including La voix des airs (1931, Sylvester, no. 339; The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice), La belle de nuit (1932, Sylvester no. 346; Private collection) and L’avenir (1936, Sylvester, no. 409; Private collection). He was also a vocal promoter of Magritte’s paintings—as well as repeatedly loaning works from his collection for international exhibition, he actively encouraged his family and close friends to purchase the artist’s work, including his brother Paul-Henri, who would go on to become prime minister of Belgium, and his cousin Robert Giron.
Spaak loaned La reconnaissance infinie to an exhibition dedicated to the predominantly Surreal review, Minotaure, in 1934, held at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Celebrating the first anniversary of the publication, the exhibition featured works by all of the artists who had been involved, in one form or another, with the review. As a result, the picture was shown alongside an eclectic and formidable selection of works by a wide range of avant-garde figures, including Constantin Brancusi, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Paul Klee, Man Ray, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. According to E.L.T. Mesens, of the six works by Magritte included in the Minotaure exhibition, one in particular prompted controversy for its challenging imagery—Le viol (Sylvester, no. 356; The Menil Collection, Houston) was removed from public view before the show opened, along with works by Balthus, Victor Brauner and Dalí, and exhibited in a special room, whose entrance was hidden by a heavy velvet curtain. Only adults, and preferably Surrealist initiates, were allowed access to the space.
Like Colinet, Spaak would prove an important source of ideas for Magritte, providing the intriguing conceptual prompt that would lead to the painting Le pont d’Héraclite (Sylvester, no. 383; Private collection) and L’Eternité (Sylvester, no. 389; The Museum of Modern Art, New York). As Alex Danchev has noted, ‘he was in many ways an ideal patron: sympathetic, imaginative, munificent, fertile of ideas,’ and the effects of Spaak’s courageous and unwavering support led to a noticeable uptick in the artist’s output during these years (Danchev, op. cit., 2021, p. 212). In this way, La reconnaissance infinie is a vivid testament to two of the most important friendships that shaped, influenced and fulfilled Magritte during the inter-war period. Together, the stories of both Colinet and Spaak are interwoven into the history of this painting, revealing the ways in which both men fed and enhanced Magritte’s unique approach to Surrealism during these pivotal decades of his career, as he refined and solidified his style and ideas into the iconic idiom we know today.
Colinet had first become involved with the Belgian Surrealist group in 1932, following an introduction by the poet Marcel Lecomte. A civil servant by day, his unusual, finely-chiselled texts proved immensely popular with the avant-garde writers and artists involved in the movement—Louis Scutenaire christened him the ‘Don Juan of words’—and he quickly became acquainted with many of its leading figures (quoted in A. Danchev with S. Whitfield, Magritte: A Life, London, 2020, p. 274). Colinet and Magritte forged a particularly close friendship, which would prove to be one of the most important and creatively fruitful within the group. He innately understood the artist’s sense of humour, and became a sounding board for ideas that were percolating in Magritte’s imagination. ‘Colinet knew the secret of a warm, disquieting humour,’ the artist explained, his love of practical jokes in particular appealing to Magritte’s own wit (quoted in J. Walravens, ‘Meeting with Magritte,’ 1962; quoted in K. Rooney and E. Plattner, René Magritte: Selected Writings, Richmond, 2016, p. 199).
With an eye for the absurd, and an expressive, tongue-in-cheek approach to language, he also provided Magritte with titles for several notable works, expanding the poetic potential of the artist’s Surrealist scenes, as well as providing visual and written prompts for potential new compositions that the artist found particularly stimulating. In this way, Colinet was responsible for introducing a series of important and unexpected motifs to Magritte’s work during the 1930s, such as Ceci est un morceau de fromage (circa 1936, Sylvester, no. 681; The Menil Collection, Houston), in which a painting of a slice of brie was placed within an ornate glass display container, and the concept of the ‘portrait manqué’ or ‘failed portrait,’ which underpinned Magritte’s now famous depictions of Edward James from 1937, La reproduction interdite and Le principe du plaisir (Sylvester, nos. 436 and 443; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, and Private collection).
La reconnaissance infinie explores the visual potential of a mysterious sphere, its surface smooth and unblemished, its form seemingly weighty and solid, even as it floats gently in mid-air. This puzzling object had appeared sporadically across Magritte’s oeuvre through the 1920s in various guises and forms, from a monumental sculptural feature balanced atop a narrow wall in the cubist Baigneuse of 1925 (Sylvester, no. 64; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi), to a collection of diminutive, heavy looking globes in Les signes du soir (Sylvester, no. 100; Private collection), one of which appears to have rolled straight out from the landscape painting, towards the viewer along the sloping, corrugated surface. In Le paysage secret (1928, Sylvester, no. 242; Private collection), meanwhile, the orb is set free from gravity, hovering in the air behind a bank of trees in a manner that echoes Magritte’s pictures of floating sleigh bells or grelots in Les fleurs de l’abime and La voix des airs (1928, Sylvester, nos. 240 and 241; Private collection and AKG Art Museum, Buffalo).
However, it is perhaps La vie secrète of 1928 (Sylvester, no. 290; Kunsthaus Zurich) that holds the closest affinity to La reconnaissance infinie. In this work, Magritte allows the levitating sphere to become the sole protagonist of the image, its mysterious form floating, unsupported in a plain, shadowy interior. With its bold red hue, elegant cornicing abutting the ceiling and subtle skirting bordering the wooden floor, the left hand wall grounds us in a familiar domestic space and provides us with a subtle sense of scale. However, the adjoining wall appears to have disappeared, perhaps removed by an unseen hand, opening the room onto a deep, black void. As a result, the nature of the sphere is rendered even more complex—is this a planet and other celestial body that has floated into the room, or perhaps an unmoored balloon, the likes of which Magritte had been fascinated with as a child, or a large, lightweight ball that has been launched into the room, and captured mid-bounce. As David Sylvester has pointed out, La vie secrète is in many ways reminiscent of the pittura metafisica paintings of Giorgio Morandi and Carlo Carrà, in which unusual, unexpected objects and pure geometric forms were arranged together in strange groupings within a box-like space. Already a loyal devotee of Giorgio de Chirico’s metaphysical paintings, Magritte may have discovered such works among the reproductions featured in the periodical Valori plastici.
In La reconnaissance infinie, the large, delicately variegated orb is surmounted by a bemused-looking figure, one hand tucked in his pocket nonchalantly, while his other arm shields his eyes from the sunlight as he strains to see into the distance. Glimpsed through a window, the sphere and its passenger traverse a steep, narrow mountainous pass, the dark, folding, rippling terrain reminiscent of the slag heaps that dotted the landscape around Magritte’s childhood home of Hainaut. The appearance of this unknown, anonymous figure seems all the more peculiar due to the fact that he is otherwise a typically ordinary gentleman, cleanshaven and neatly dressed in a simple grey suit, replete with shirt and tie, the kind of figure one might encounter on the street. Magritte often deployed such familiar, everyday characters in his paintings, their presence heightening the unsettling atmosphere of his scenes and rendering them profoundly strange in the process.
Viewed through an existential lens, the unexpected appearance of this man atop the globe may also be seen as a subversive visual prompt by Magritte, deployed to encourage his viewers to question and reconsider their own understanding of their position within the universe. ‘Perhaps I put men where you don’t expect to see them,’ Magritte would later explain. ‘But then man is in the sky, too, isn’t he?… Man is in the sky. The earth travels in the sky, and man is there on the earth…’ (‘Interview for Life’; quoted in A. Blavier, René Magritte: Ecrits complets, Paris, 2009, p. 610). In this way, the figure may be interpreted as a mirror image of our own selves, as we struggle to comprehend our position, simultaneously grounded in the earth and our immediate surroundings, yet at the same time, floating on a planet as it hurtles through space.
Enhancing this effect, Magritte places the viewer directly into the universe of La reconnaissance infinie by including the edge of a window within the composition, framing the view so that we are a participant in the bizarre goings-on. The angle of the cornicing, paired with the window ledge in the foreground, reinforces the sharply receding perspective of the mountains and the diminutive scale of the man atop the sphere, further emphasising the contrast between our own position and that of the floating figure. In this way, the painting appears to fulfil one of the central tenets of Magritte’s unique Surrealist vision. As he explained to Colinet: ‘The feeling we experience while looking at a picture cannot be separated from either the picture or ourselves. The feeling, the picture, we, are joined in our mystery’ (letter to P. Colinet; quoted in H. Torczyner, Magritte: Ideas and Images, New York, 1977, p. 220).
Here, the figure looks off into the distance, his gaze directed away from the window where the viewer watches from, and instead trained on something that remains outside of our field of vision. This subtle adjustment adds further layers of mystery to the scene, leaving the viewer with an unknowable conundrum as they ponder what may have drawn his eye and captured his attention. The attitude and actions of the man may also tie into the play on words featured in the title, the French word reconnaissance having the same definition as in English of watchfulness, but with the added double meaning of ‘recognition.’ Although the former translation is apt for someone watching out over a great distance, the latter invokes the moment of recognition when something comes into focus and our understanding of its nature solidifies and settles—perhaps the figure has perceived the ‘mystery’ which Magritte had described to Colinet. Indeed, this character may have been a reflection of Colinet himself, his reaction a nod to his own moment of recognition and revelation within the context of the 1933 exhibition, as he discovered and absorbed the painter’s uncanny, challenging Surrealist visions.
The gravity-defying position of the sphere, meanwhile, appears to invoke the moon, and in particular the imaginative illustrations that accompanied Jules Verne’s seminal sci-fi novel De la terre à la lune when it was published. Clearly pleased with their collaboration on La reconnaissance infinie and the poetic potential of the orb, Magritte wrote in a postcard to Colinet dated 1934: ‘The subject of my next picture is the Moon. What we have to do is find something that really makes us feel we are on a spherical world. If the moon illuminates a scene, it mustn’t be ranked as an indifferent spectator or a mere go-between, or simply have a picturesque role. A trap for the moon, an incantation, a lunar mirror—these give a slight idea of the sort of thing we should be looking for. Will you be kind enough to start when you have a moment to spare?’ (quoted in S. Whitfield, Magritte, exh. cat., The Hayward Gallery, London, 1992, p. 31).
Sadly, this fervent creative exchange came to an abrupt end towards the end of the decade, as the friendship between Colinet and Magritte broke down, following the artist’s discovery that his wife Georgette had been having an affair with Colinet. Shocked by this betrayal, Magritte banned Colinet from his home and the men barely spoke to one another for twelve years, the rift seemingly unresolvable. However, their friendship gradually healed, and Colinet took on the role of collaborator and supporter once again throughout the 1950s, reporting things he saw or overheard to the artist, and working with Magritte on ideas for various compositions. In an interview broadcast on Belgian radio in 1954, on the occasion of Magritte’s major retrospective at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the artist was accompanied by Colinet, who vividly explained to the reporter the enduring power and captivating mystery of the artist’s paintings: ‘I had the thought that no one had ever seen these unique, fascinating pictures until today. It would be too facile to say that they have been seen merely because they have been registered by the eye… or that we have had a few odd ideas or fantasies about them. Nevertheless, extravagant as this idea may sound, I feel it is worthwhile, since it makes me realise how demanding these pictures are; how, because of their content, we can never see them enough’ (quoted in ‘Interview with Magritte by Jean Stévo (I),’ broadcast on Belgian radio, 12 May 1954; reproduced in Rooney and Plattner, op. cit., 2016, p. 158).
Shortly after its completion, La reconnaissance infinie was acquired directly from Magritte by Claude Spaak, a playwright and author who was also closely involved with Belgian Surrealism. Spaak had met the artist in 1931 through the intercession of E.L.T. Mesens, and he would become an integral advocate for Magritte’s art during this period, including him in numerous shows at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where Spaak was head of the society for auxiliary exhibitions. When the stock from Galerie Le Centaure was liquidated in 1932, Spaak banded together with Mesens to purchase a large group of over 150 works from Magritte’s early oeuvre. Even though he had contributed half the funds, Spaak took only a small portion of the group, selecting particular compositions that he felt spoke to him. He subsequently became concerned about how much of Magritte’s time was being spent on his activities with Studio Dongo—the commercial design company that the artist had co-founded with his brother Paul in order to make ends meet after returning to Brussels from Paris—and decided to provide the artist with a stipend. He also commissioned several works directly from him, including family portraits of himself, his wife Suzanne, and his children, Bazou and Pilette.
Spaak’s financial and creative support proved crucial during this period, allowing Magritte the time to devote to his painting and develop his poetic Surrealist vision in bold new directions. In the process, he came to own a number of masterworks by the artist, including La voix des airs (1931, Sylvester, no. 339; The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice), La belle de nuit (1932, Sylvester no. 346; Private collection) and L’avenir (1936, Sylvester, no. 409; Private collection). He was also a vocal promoter of Magritte’s paintings—as well as repeatedly loaning works from his collection for international exhibition, he actively encouraged his family and close friends to purchase the artist’s work, including his brother Paul-Henri, who would go on to become prime minister of Belgium, and his cousin Robert Giron.
Spaak loaned La reconnaissance infinie to an exhibition dedicated to the predominantly Surreal review, Minotaure, in 1934, held at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Celebrating the first anniversary of the publication, the exhibition featured works by all of the artists who had been involved, in one form or another, with the review. As a result, the picture was shown alongside an eclectic and formidable selection of works by a wide range of avant-garde figures, including Constantin Brancusi, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Paul Klee, Man Ray, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. According to E.L.T. Mesens, of the six works by Magritte included in the Minotaure exhibition, one in particular prompted controversy for its challenging imagery—Le viol (Sylvester, no. 356; The Menil Collection, Houston) was removed from public view before the show opened, along with works by Balthus, Victor Brauner and Dalí, and exhibited in a special room, whose entrance was hidden by a heavy velvet curtain. Only adults, and preferably Surrealist initiates, were allowed access to the space.
Like Colinet, Spaak would prove an important source of ideas for Magritte, providing the intriguing conceptual prompt that would lead to the painting Le pont d’Héraclite (Sylvester, no. 383; Private collection) and L’Eternité (Sylvester, no. 389; The Museum of Modern Art, New York). As Alex Danchev has noted, ‘he was in many ways an ideal patron: sympathetic, imaginative, munificent, fertile of ideas,’ and the effects of Spaak’s courageous and unwavering support led to a noticeable uptick in the artist’s output during these years (Danchev, op. cit., 2021, p. 212). In this way, La reconnaissance infinie is a vivid testament to two of the most important friendships that shaped, influenced and fulfilled Magritte during the inter-war period. Together, the stories of both Colinet and Spaak are interwoven into the history of this painting, revealing the ways in which both men fed and enhanced Magritte’s unique approach to Surrealism during these pivotal decades of his career, as he refined and solidified his style and ideas into the iconic idiom we know today.