{"id":79936,"date":"2014-11-21T17:32:14","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T22:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=79936"},"modified":"2014-11-21T17:32:14","modified_gmt":"2014-11-21T22:32:14","slug":"magritte-shaving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/21\/magritte-shaving\/","title":{"rendered":"Magritte Shaving"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_79937\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/98.562_01_l02_pod_smaller1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-79937\" class=\"wp-image-79937\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/98.562_01_l02_pod_smaller1.jpg\" alt=\"98.562_01_l02_POD_smaller\" width=\"600\" height=\"483\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/98.562_01_l02_pod_smaller1.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/98.562_01_l02_pod_smaller1-300x241.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-79937\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ren\u00e9 Magritte, <i>Les valeurs personnelles (Personal Values)<\/i>, 1952, oil on canvas. Image via SFMOMA<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Ren\u00e9 Magritte was born on this day in 1898. Louis Simpson\u2019s poem \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/poetry\/3305\/magritte-shaving-louis-simpson\">Magritte Shaving<\/a>\u201d appeared in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/back-issues\/79\">twenty-fifth anniversary issue<\/a> in Spring 1981.<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The houses look at one another,<br \/>a language of windows.<br \/>The violin stands above the collar &#8230;<br \/>sleigh bells in a blue sky.<\/p>\n<p>How calm the torso of a woman<br \/>like a naked statue.<br \/>Reclining in an alcove<br \/>with curtains, the window gives<br \/>a view of earth &#8230; yellow fields.<br \/>She has a blue leg and a green arm,<br \/>red arm, and leg painted saffron.<\/p>\n<p>The orange sphere floating in space<br \/>in front of the blue canyon<br \/>has a face like a mask<br \/>with fixed brown eyes.<br \/>Directly underneath, on the parapet,<br \/>stands a shirt with a tie<br \/>in a dark, formal suit.<\/p>\n<p>He has left his shaving brush<br \/>on top of the cabinet with doors of glass<br \/>that is merging with a cloud.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ren\u00e9 Magritte was born on this day in 1898. Louis Simpson\u2019s poem \u201cMagritte Shaving\u201d 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 &#8230;sleigh bells in a blue sky. How calm the torso of a womanlike a naked statue.Reclining in an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1188],"tags":[1881,13236,7429,4154,16156,3539,165,5064,7318],"class_list":["post-79936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-archive","tag-birthday","tag-issue-79","tag-louis-simpson","tag-paintings","tag-personal-values","tag-poem","tag-poetry","tag-rene-magritte","tag-surrealism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ren\u00e9 Magritte Was Born on This Day in 1898<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"From our archive, read Louis Simpson\u2019s poem \u201cMagritte Shaving.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/21\/magritte-shaving\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Magritte Shaving by Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 21, 2014 \u2013 Ren\u00e9 Magritte was born on this day in 1898. 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