The Banquet (1958) by René Magritte

The Banquet (1958) by René Magritte

This canvas is the last, largest, and most impressive of four oil paintings of this title; the three other paintings are all dated to 1957 (ill. 851–52, and p. 272, no. 857). There are also five versions of this image in gouache, starting in 1956 and extending to 1964 (ill. In ibid., vol. 4, 1994, p. 193, no. 1421, p. 198, no. 1429, p. 273, no. 1563, and pp. 275–76, nos. 1566 and 1568). Magritte first realized the idea and conceived the title for this series in the first of these gouaches completed in 1956 shortly after he announced to Mirabelle Dors and Maurice Rapin, in a letter of November 9, 1956, that “Le Banquet” was one of his latest “finds” (ibid., vol. 3, 1993, p. 267). The little sketch in this letter shows the main motif of the sun visible before a clump of trees set in an unspecified landscape. In the first oil version (as in the earlier related image, The Sixteenth of September, 1956, location unknown; ibid., vol. 3, 1993, p. 254, no. 834, ill., which shows the crescent moon on a large tree), the clump of trees is set in a meadowlike clearing dotted with large stones. In the second oil version of The Banquet, as in the Bergman canvas, the woodland glade is replaced with a stone parapet or balustrade, whose top is lit by the sun’s rays. This feature suggests a parklike setting, a domesticated concept of nature suited to Magritte’s deadpan, realist style. The proportions of the objects in relation to one another also differ from canvas to canvas; in the picture under dis­cussion, the sun looms larger in relation to the trees than in other versions and appears therefore closer to the viewer. It is interesting that, although the motif in essential respects is identical, significant variations mark each version as a distinct image.