​Real, Surreal, Unreal, Hyperreal, by Robert I Mann

Empire of Light, by Rene Magritte (Belgium) 1953-54

​Real, Surreal, Unreal, Hyperreal

First there is surrealism and then realism, one and then the other, as though you are in a revolving door.  As the surreal becomes more true than strange and the real blends dream and the mundane, we see that this nighttime scene with its daytime sky and its lamppost glowing with brilliant but constrained light is actually hundreds of scenes as its parts challenge and change one another. 
 
You feel that you can walk through the low foliage at the base of the painting and up to the house as light from the lamppost and daytime sky turns shadows pitch black that arrive at your feet: never have I ever felt so much a part of a scene, and I am looking at an impossibility.  Suddenly, I see forms of consciousness in various forms of light: the lamppost, lit windows and blue sky with its white clouds. I think consciousness is trying to dominate the darkness, after all, Magritte’s painting is called The Empire of Light. The darkness, in the silhouetted trees, dense foliage, and large foregrounded rock, is therefore the unconscious.  But unconsciousness is stronger than consciousness, desires stronger that thought, impulse stronger than constraint, so light’s empire is its rule over the dominance of darkness.  
 
These ideas clash and fade (how can you rule over dominance) even as others swirl and crash: the work begs for speculation as it demands acceptance. This is fun.
 
The museum note on the wall quotes Magritte using "surprise" and "enchantment" in connection with the painting. There was so much surprise and enchantment in the scene that he painted several versions of it. 
 
The museum note claims the rock is "sinister" and there is an air of suspense because the house has no door, only shuttered windows except for two lit from within, thus giving the scene a sense of "drama."  OK, to each their own, but a rock lying in a field is sinister?  And the house has a double wooden gate on the left where one could enter a courtyard and find a front door.  It is truly an evocative painting if one person sees in it the play of consciousness and unconsciousness and another drama from a sinister rock and shuttered windows. 
 
A version of the scene was sold (November 2024) for more than $121 million in an auction in New York. I saw the one produced above just a couple weeks before this mind-boggling sale.
 
Robert I Mann

Robert I Mann is product of the public education system of the state of California from kindergarten to graduate school. Retired now, he taught literature and writing at an institute in Italy where American students kept up with their studies while doing their year abroad.  He also taught writing and political science to an international student body at a fashion institute.  He has had fiction published in numerous online and print publications, most recently in MacQ.