Sander Roedig 24/01

Assignment: Formalism

L'Empire des lumières was painted by the surrealist Belgian

artist, René Magritte. He created these famous works between
the years of 1953 to 54.

What all variations of Empire of Light illustrate is a street

scene of a house at night, with a bright blue sky painted above
it. Magritte chose to keep The Empire of Light incredibly
simple with the only element of fantasy being a depiction of
both night and day. This juxtaposition is achieved by the use
of color as light.

The use of color achieves it goal of confusing the viewer by

using an incredibly unsettling light contrasted with a
traditionally eerie darkness. The bright sky appears to be cold
ad uninviting, even though it starkly contrasts the darkness
surrounding it. The observer is also confused by surreal depiction of day and night in one
image, what we see with our eyes cannot be true in real life.