The Richness of Emptiness and Place Layers in Rene Magritte's The Lovers1
A Cognitive Spatial Approach
Dr. Mohammed Sameer Abd Elsalam
The lovers 1 is an exceptional artwork that was created by the Belgium international artist Rene Magritte in 1928, and it accepts a multiplicity of interpretations because the element of occultation mixed with spiritual harmony requires cognitive interpretative expansion, and renewed conclusions according to the location and context of the recipient of the painting discourse, his relative presence, and his critical knowledge background.
In this context, I would like to read the painting according to some approaches inspired by contemporary cognitive and spatial studies, such as recurrent neural processing of data, the study of mental representations and cognitive metaphors, the study of context according to the principle of relevance, then the study of spatial metaphorical margins and their expansion, and the overlapping role of the painter and the role of the narrator who collects tales and clippings, examining the relationships between characters spatially. Also, I believe that contemporary cognitive and spatial studies are compatible with the spirit of Magritte's work, and reveal some imaginary details and conclusions that accept guesswork, intuition, the production of abundant inferences, and relative semantics according to the dynamic context of the painting reception.
*Context and Relevance:
If we want to read the work of Rene Magritte through the wide modern cultural context, we will notice the rise of creative avant-garde, and the ability to expand avant-garde tendency, in the future, in other civil moments due to its poetic and mystic signs and their renewed aesthetical impact in the potential recipient. Therefore, I believe that these experimental signs are compatible with the direction of recognizing place in a new cognitive context which confirms its multiplicity and its deep hidden layers.
Also, we can conclude, according to the principles of the theory of relevance according to Sperber and Wilson, the choice of René Magritte, the state of wide dreamy abstraction parallel to the structure of the presence in the natural-surreal scene; Hence, the scene is not just as it seems before us; Because the collection of arguments and inferences will expand according to the hidden dreams related to the numerous layers and stories, and its potential virtual characters in the dynamic artistic emptiness.
Therefore, the most important element in the attitude of cognitive communication is the ability to form a new creative field in the void between the man and the woman or in the dark and glow subconscious infinite spaces behind the masks; Hence, stories, visible and invisible audiovisual data will be formed, and confirmed by the artist's discourse beyond the rhetorics of the surface of the painting.
*The neural–cognitive processing:
We can read the brain's processing transmitted data which were related to the neural system in Rene Magritte's painting according to the principles of Victor Lamme's recurrent processing theory, especially in the two advanced stages of processing, which are the third and fourth stages of each the artist, and the two main characters, the man and the woman.
If we take the position of the painter’s perspective, we will find that the superficial recurrent of the scene data re-reads the deferred sympathy within the elements of the local landscape, and then produces a vision that connects the two characters to each other through a dream, and a void that resembles the worlds of art, or the realms of the subconscious, the alternation between darkness and imagining the landscape according to the possibility of its new figural and deep beginnings, then the first sense of the self and of the other, and being in the world without clamor, or excessive clamor suggests a departure from the harmony of the scene.
As for the widespread and deep processing of the data, it requires global spaces for extensive analysis and interpretation, and requires the presence of virtual entities in the spatial void, or the replacement of the place with metaphorical, dreamy, or virtual spatial layers, and the curves may be a contextual visual indicator to expect the re-cultivation of man and woman in a watery space, or wavy, or microgravity, thus the dreamy-corporeal convergence celebrates the plurality and dissolving in the case of the multiplication of alternative personal and spatial references in the renewed cosmic or virtual landscape.
On the other hand, if we take the position of the personal perspective, we will see the local superficial recurrent in the transition between the memory of the scene that is subject to modification by the daydreaming, then the slight expansion in rearranging and structuring the local scene data according to the influence of the state of mind and the effectiveness of the subconscious; The fourth stage will expand in the excessive union of successive universal self-images of the tones of deferred love, deferred absence, variable spectral presence, and water-colored abstract spots that connect the self, the other and the renewed place, and gradually get rid of the rigidity of the state of incarnation towards the production of ethereal fields and virtual entities in a wider void than the void of the local scene that has been modified in the earlier local processing.
*The mental state of the characters:
We can infer the mental state of the two characters by recovering the previous moment of wearing the mask, and I think that this moment carried a set of existential and spatial impressions in short-term memory, as well as a desire for creative alternation between entering and exiting the subconscious world periodically, and then the state of mind centers on the two personalities experiencing infinite deep levels of existence that may start from the realistic moment of presence and progress through the levels of daydreams, and the level of fragmented dream images towards the experience of full spectral presence and deferred return again. And here I can realize a moment similar to the spiritual exercise of context change in Stanislavsky's method of preparing the actor, as the character can replace the imaginary context and re-read the natural scene like a dynamic theatre stage that confirms the multiple levels of existence.
*The mental representations of the characters:
If we imagine that the first visual, auditory, and linguistic mental representations were manifested in the minds of the two characters in a distance between the real and the surreal, we will find that the adventure of wearing a mask is logically justified with the aim of expanding the creation of infinite inner mental representations of the self’s voice, the woman’s voice, the sounds of trees, birds, and images of clothes and grass that Include deep inner spatial other shadows in the subconscious worlds.
*The basic deductive argument in the discourse:
We note that the abundant levels of presence behind the masks are what harmony creates in the discourse of the painting, especially when it relates to the female presence near the center, and her connection to the authenticity of the brown color, which in this relative context suggests the authenticity of spatial pluralism beyond the landscape; Hence, the hypothesis that is relatively correct, according to the context, is the authenticity of the apparent connection with the hidden in the ordinary and daily, and then the result becomes the possibility of spatial perceptual expansion in personal references and potential spaces, especially in the state of double invisibility.
*The cognitive metaphor between the personal presence and the hyper-personal presence:
We can read the cognitive metaphor behind the discourse of Magritte's painting through the principles and mechanisms involved in the efforts of Fauconnier, Lakoff, Johnson, and the cognitive blended space theory of Mark Turner, and we can notice a similarity in the discourse of the painting between the first input space, which is the personal presence in the natural place, and the second input space; It is the hyper-personal presence within the multiplicity of contexts in a wavy metaphorical place. Each of the two mental spaces is linked to each other through a set of semantic lines such as the effect of creative virginity in recognizing oneself, the other, and the place, realizing the spectral presence and the possibility of expanding it beyond the phenomenon of incarnation, the effect of passing, or temporary presence within the communication event, and then expanding these possible specters in the creation of hyper-personal references, relating to the deep levels of existence in the dreamy, virtual, artistic, and cosmic spaces.
Additionally, the general space will be the structure of the extensible artistic presence; As for the cognitive blended space, it will be formed through the multiplication of images of the man and the woman in a different experimental spatial context that combines the effect of the natural scene on short-term memory, and the successive images in the process of free association which produces the imaginary fields of other spaces and other levels of existence that may appear as a living surreal field of art that be similar to the signs of the eye, the dreamy dove, and the pipe in Magritte's other works and their dynamic shadows.
*Some spatial approaches:
We can open the spatial expansion in Magritte's painting through two main elements; The first concerns the adventure of wearing a mask that is consciously or unconsciously opening up to the possible duality of the structure of space; As for the second element, it is the expressive interaction between the group of colors that shape the painting, which represents an abstract space corresponding to the natural scene at the same time. It enhances the tones of innocence of cognitive discovery of the other space, individual freedom beyond the structure of love, an authenticity that precedes the temporal tone of presence, and the dreamy ripple lurking behind the vast natural greenery.
In detail, we can read Magritte's painting according to contemporary multidisciplinary spatial studies, and be inspired by its methodological mechanisms such as the fantasy spatial expansion and the relationship between the narrator and the painter in Robert Talley JR's perspective, the study of the metaphorical spatial margin of real space and the dynamics of the formation of the place civilized and culturally according to Bertrand Westphal, and the study of the network of spatial relationships Between characters of literature and then art within the effort of Franco Moretti.
Also, we cannot interpret the map of the real place without reading the broad cultural and civil context of the works of modernity that expanded into theatrical, artistic, cinematic, and dreamy experimentation; The real land then relates to this modern heritage through the tone of strangeness behind the mask, and then the metaphorical margin of the map is formed in the process of the earth exhausting its own structure through the other spatial figural ripple in the scene.
The veil also opens a set of spatial relations that connect space with time and combine the functions of the painter and the narrator in the tales of the deconstruction of the personal history in the dream, or the narrative daydream that posits the characters standing on a changing mercurial or airy terrain.
Additionally, we may assume that the spatial expansion occurs through the presence of two cylindrical shapes that intersect in a curved way between a man and a woman, and they may be earth-colored and connected to each other towards a void rich in imaginary signs of possible productive dynamism.
As for the network of spatial relationships between the characters, it requires in the unity of discourse the presence of a hypothetical third entity that may be blue in color, dynamic, or has a changing fantasy presence, and it evokes the specters of fantasy, dream, and the three characters in the real world will be connected by firm links or arrows while they are connected to each other with intermittent arrows profound at the same time to reflect the multiplicity of possible worlds and possible spatial virtual entities.
Consequently, we understand the importance of that dynamic virtual personality and the broken lines of interaction that point to other stories and other forms of communication at deep spatial levels; Therefore, if we remove the virtual personality point from the spatial network of the characters, we will discover that it has another activity included in the discourse of the painting according to the contextual darkness indicator behind the masks, which is an indicator that introduces the personality into a spatial world similar to the world of sleep, and the sequence of images of the unconscious or the stream of consciousness, or we will notice the effectiveness of the virtual dynamic colored space in the similarity of the color of nature with the spatial expressive color that represents a kind of creative ascent of the dream tone.
*Magritt's The Lovers1 link at:
Dr. Mohammed Sameer Abd Elsalam
Literary Critic and Art Critic