René MAGRITTE (1898–1967). Autograph letter with drawing, Br - Lot 227

Lot n° 227
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2000 - 2500 EUR
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Result : 2 638EUR
René MAGRITTE (1898–1967). Autograph letter with drawing, Br - Lot 227
René MAGRITTE (1898–1967). Autograph letter with drawing, Brussels, August 12, 1961, [to his friend André Bosmans]; 2 pages, in-8 Regarding André Bosmans’s article, “Pointing the Finger at Knowledge,” for issue No. 2 of the journal *Rhétorique*, devoted to Magritte’s painting *La Présence d’esprit*. Magritte revisits his previous remarks, particularly regarding the meaning of the word “to exist”: “To exist means what interests the poet [...] ‘to realize a possibility, to be another tree, a man, a church sprinkler, etc.’,” and he suggests a new shift in terminology... “Note that when we say: Nothingness is a wonder of the world (even the most beautiful one), it holds only the status of a thing given by the world, belonging to the world, and forming part of the world. If you say: Nothingness is more marvelous than all the wonders of the world, it is no longer ranked among the possibilities that, taken together, constitute the world. (The world comprises: things of every kind—visible, invisible, real, imaginary.) Nothingness, then, is not part of the world, since whatever is in the world has an existence—of whatever kind it may be. Nothingness is the absence of existence, which does not mean that Nothingness is nothing. [...] Nothingness, on the other hand, would be the absence of both Nothing and an existence that is almost nonexistent. Heidegger speaks very eloquently about Nothing. I believe, as he does, that Nothing does not depend on a form of language—Negation—but that this form of language is possible precisely because Nothing exists. The difference between Nothingness and Mystery seems to me to consist in the fact that Nothingness withdraws the existence of the things that Mystery makes possible. Nothingness is also what Mystery has not made possible. These two terms seem inseparable to me, for Nothingness is a mystery that Mystery necessarily makes possible (the other possibilities are not absolutely necessary since they can disappear)”... He sketches a new “idea” for a painting: “A little girl in a blue dress, her head facing the sun. She is sitting on a small stone wall in front of a landscape"... René Magritte, Letters to André Bosmans 1958–1967 (Seghers-Isy Brachot, 1990), pp. 184–186. Provenance: Drouot-Richelieu auction (Laurence Calmels), January 24, 1996, Correspondence with André Bosmans, no. 66(2).
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