Saturday, October 24, 2009

Scale and Proportion

When thinking about scale and proportion, my mind directly goes towards Les Valeurs Personnelles by Rene Magritte. This painting is part of the SF MOMA permanent collection, which I have just frequently visited.

In Les Valeurs Personelles, Magritte changes the scale on the items to create visual interest. In the room Magritte paints a glass, a shaving brush, and soap bar, a comb and a match, much bigger than the other items in the room. He paints a mirror in the room to create a sense of space within a space. Also the use of sky as wallpaper brings the outdoors indoors. Magritte also over emphasizes the scale of the certain pieces by making them significantly larger than they are in reality creating a sense emphasis within the painting. Also Magritte uses the items to create an interesting composition by spacing them and placing them at different part in the room. He creates a sense of positive and negative space in the painting, which makes it interesting.

What is most interesting about the piece are the items selected for the painting. The items hold no particular significance, but the viewer is left to question the items selected. They are everyday object selected and over emphasized which creates a contrasting force with the other objects in the room. The over emphasized scale of the items in the painting create an interesting focal point for the painting as well. People are left to question if the room is miniature, while the objects are normal sized or if the room is normal sized and the items are not to scale. The scale presents a presence of fantasy or a dream sequence. The situation in the painting is not realistic which creates a sense of mystery in the painting. The painting is a great example of the surrealist movement because of the scale change and the de-contextualization of the objects in the room.

Photo: Les Valeurs Personnelles, 1952, Rene Magritte, art.com


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