René Magritte, Les valeurs personnelles (Personal Values), 1952, oil on canvas. Image via SFMOMA
René Magritte was born on this day in 1898. Louis Simpson’s poem “Magritte Shaving” appeared in our twenty-fifth anniversary issue in Spring 1981.
The houses look at one another,a language of windows.The violin stands above the collar …sleigh bells in a blue sky. How calm the torso of a womanlike a naked statue.Reclining in an alcovewith curtains, the window givesa view of earth … yellow fields.She has a blue leg and a green arm,red arm, and leg painted saffron. The orange sphere floating in spacein front of the blue canyonhas a face like a maskwith fixed brown eyes.Directly underneath, on the parapet,stands a shirt with a tiein a dark, formal suit. He has left his shaving brushon top of the cabinet with doors of glassthat is merging with a cloud.
The houses look at one another,a language of windows.The violin stands above the collar …sleigh bells in a blue sky.
How calm the torso of a womanlike a naked statue.Reclining in an alcovewith curtains, the window givesa view of earth … yellow fields.She has a blue leg and a green arm,red arm, and leg painted saffron.
The orange sphere floating in spacein front of the blue canyonhas a face like a maskwith fixed brown eyes.Directly underneath, on the parapet,stands a shirt with a tiein a dark, formal suit.
He has left his shaving brushon top of the cabinet with doors of glassthat is merging with a cloud.
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