The Pleasure Principle (Portrait of Edward James)

Rene Magritte

Brilliant ideas have a benefactor

An artist’s much needed reactor

Giving rewards for their talent

Appreciating their palettes

How artists perform

And help them move toward

A deserved award.

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“West Dean, Sussex, England, 1907‒San Remo, Italy, 1984”

“The eccentric British poet and landscape gardener Edward James was one of the most important patrons of Surrealist art in the twentieth century. He provided financial support to artists such as Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí, Leonor Fini, and René Magritte during the 1930s and 1940s and assembled one of the earliest and most significant collections of Surrealism outside of France.”

“Salvador Dalí introduced James to René Magritte, who stayed with him for a summer in London. The Belgian artist completed a series of paintings for James’s Vogue Regency dining room in Wimpole Street, which were to be displayed hidden behind mirrors with lunettes by Boucher depicting the four seasons, and revealed only when illuminated from within. The Pleasure Principle (1937), shows James straight on, but he is no less visible, his head obscured by a bright light. At this time, James was financing the Surrealist publication “Minotaure”.”

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https://dversepoets.com/2024/03/19/everything-we-see/