Bonhams : RENÉ MAGRITTE (1898-1967) La voix du sang 9 1/16 x 7 1/16 in (23 x 18 cm) (Executed in 1947) (2024)

La voix du sang
signed 'Magritte' (lower left)
gouache on paper laid down on card
9 1/16 x 7 1/16 in (23 x 18 cm)
Executed in 1947

Provenance
Walter Schwarzenberg Collection (Galerie Le Centaure), Brussels.
Thence by descent to the previous owner; their sale, S.A. Servarts N.V., Brussels, November 7, 1995, lot 168.
Private collection, Belgium (acquired at the above sale).
Thence by descent to the present owner.

Exhibited
(possibly) Brussels, Galerie Lou Cosyn, Exposition Magritte, May 31 - June 21, 1947.
Lokeren, Kunstgalerij de Vuyst, Le Centaure, November 20, 1981 - January 31, 1982, no. 81.

Literature
(possibly) J. Koening, 'Bruxelles,' in Artes, Antwerp, July - August 1946, no. 11-12, p. 37.
D. Sylvester (ed.), S. Whitfield & M. Raeburn, René Magritte, Catalogue Raisonné, vol. IV, Gouaches, Temperas, Watercolours and Papier Collés, 1918-1967, Antwerp, 1994, no. 1236a (illustrated p. 89).

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"We could hear the hearts of the trees beating before the hearts of men."
- René Magritte

La voix du sang epitomizes René Magritte's singular vocabulary of captivating and enigmatic imagery, which challenged established norms of artistic representation. Following a period influenced by Impressionism during the war, characterized by his en plein-soleil style, Magritte's late 1940s works mark a return to the darker and more mysterious themes for which he is best known. The use of gouache in the present work emphasizes Magritte's intricate style and presents an illuminated palette. La voix du sang depicts a large tree set against an idyllic landscape. The trunk of the tree has three doors displaying unexpected contents: instead of birds or foliage, the hollows of the tree instead contain an egg-like orb and a fully rigged ship. The third door is just slightly ajar, inviting the viewer to imagine what might lie behind it.

Magritte first explored this imagery in his 1935 work L'arbre savant, which depicts a lifeless, rootless tree trunk with a hint of bare branches above and four cubbies in the trunk, set against a concrete wall. Magritte would revisit this theme throughout his career, creating an iconic series of works titled La voix du sang. Translated by David Sylvester as Blood Will Tell, or literally, "the voice of blood," the phrase lends an eerie, portentous feeling to the painting which is directly juxtaposed by the bright palette and delicate brushstrokes. Magritte gave only a brief statement on this title: "The words dictated by our blood sometimes seem mysterious to us. Here it seems we are ordered to open up magic niches in the trees" (quoted in 'On Titles,' in K. Rooney & E. Plattner, (eds.), René Magritte: Selected Writings, Richmond, 2016, p. 115). Claude Spaak proposes that Magritte found inspiration for La voix du sang in Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland'; "[Alice] noticed that one of the trees had a doorway leading right into it. 'That's very curious!' she thought, 'but everything's curious today: I may as well go in.' And in she went" (quoted in Alice's Adventures Underground, manuscript written and illustrated 1862-1864, p. 66). This phenomenon of stumbling across a portal to another world, and the urge to further explore, is perfectly encapsulated by the artist's La voix du sang paintings.

Contemporaneous iterations of La voix du sang see Magritte exploring various compositions: in some works, the full tree is presented; in others, just the trunk of the tree is visible. Magritte also experimented with the surrounding scenery, sometimes presenting the tree in daylight and other times against a night sky. In one version, the artist rejects natural scenery altogether, replacing it with a red curtain. These variations in both the setting and in the objects presented by the tree underscore Magritte's affinity for artistic devices embraced by both his contemporaries and historical artists. Magritte looked to the Romantic and Sublime painters as inspiration for his natural settings; the artist observed "I think the picturesque can be employed like any other element, provided it is placed in a new order or particular circ*mstances" (quoted in H. Torczyner, Magritte: The True Art of Painting, New York, 1977, p. 120). The orb in the center recess of the tree, an object Magritte included in many of his paintings, is perhaps a reference to a motif often used by Giorgio de Chirico, notably in his painting Chant d'amour. Of that work, Magritte said, "It was in fact in 1922 when I first came to know the works of Chirico. A friend then showed me a reproduction of his painting, The Song of Love, which I always consider to be a work by the greatest painter of our time in the sense that it deals with poetry's ascendancy over painting and the various manners of painting. Chirico was the first to dream of what must be painted and not how to paint" (quoted in J. T. Soby, René Magritte, New York, 1965, p. 8).

The present work utilizes a close-cropped composition, which grants the audience an intimate view into the tree as Kunstkammer. The viewer becomes a proxy for Alice: we are encouraged to not only accept the uncanny scene in front of us, but to further explore the mysteries of Magritte's world in our own minds. Magritte resolutely resisted any generalized characterizations of his motifs; La voix du sang presents an ideal opportunity to create our own narrative interpretation of the scene.

This work was previously in the collection of Walter Schwarzenberg, founder of Galerie Le Centaure, Brussels. Schwarzenberg gave Magritte his first solo exhibition in 1927, which, despite receiving criticism at the time, is now widely credited as the impetus for Magritte's artistic success. In 1947, Galerie Lou Cosyn, Brussels, exhibited 30 of Magritte's small gouaches. According to Jean Koenig's exhibition review in Artes, a work of this title was exhibited; David Sylvester suggests that there are three versions of the painting to which Koenig may have referred, and he speculates that all three could possibly have been included in the exhibition. The present work was included in a 1981-82 exhibition at Kunstgalerij de Vuyst, Lokeren, Belgium, entitled Le Centaure, which highlighted Walter Schwarzenberg's gallery's legacy. After the sale of the painting by a private collector in 1995, the work joined the family of the current owner, where it has remained a treasured cornerstone of the distinguished collection for three decades.