A reflection on Rene Magritte’s the eternally obvious and the female nude
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Abstract
Rene Magritte’s The Eternally Obvious, created in 1930, is currently displayed in the Menil Collection. It depicts the frontal nude of a woman, cut into five isolated paintings that serve to create the entire full-length portrait. The way the piece is mounted onto an acrylic sheet is meant to give the piece an almost life-size view of a woman, and that we as the viewer can stand in front of her almost as if she exists in the space of the real world. By deconstructing the nude, Magritte creates a nonconsensual three-way relationship between him, as the artist, us, the viewer as the unwilling voyeur, and the subject as the person being preyed on.