With his dark suit, neat hair­cut, and bowler hat, René Magritte embod­ied ear­ly-twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry Bel­gian nor­mal­i­ty. Yet the feel­ings his work stirred in their view­ers were very much the oppo­site of nor­mal. He had var­i­ous ways of accom­plish­ing this. One was “to com­bine two famil­iar objects and make a new one,” says gal­lerist-Youtu­ber James Payne in the new Great Art Explained video above. “Anoth­er method was to paint a sol­id object as if it were a see-through por­tal. In some paint­ings he would defy grav­i­ty and show heavy objects float­ing. He would give an unfa­mil­iar name to famil­iar objects. He would change scale by mak­ing small objects huge and large objects impos­si­bly tiny.”

One of Magrit­te’s par­tic­u­lar­ly effec­tive meth­ods was “to obscure or to hide a face or an object, set­ting up a con­flict between the vis­i­ble that is hid­den and the vis­i­ble that is present.” The pow­er of this tech­nique is vivid­ly show­cased by The Lovers II, from 1928, in which Magritte takes the “cin­e­mat­ic cliché” of the kiss and “dis­rupts our voyeuris­tic plea­sure by cov­er­ing the faces in cloth. A moment of col­lec­tion becomes one of iso­la­tion, of sex­u­al frus­tra­tion. An inti­mate moment becomes some­thing dark and effort­less­ly dis­turb­ing, some­thing hid­den and anony­mous.”

Might this have some­thing to do with the death of his moth­er, who threw her­self in a riv­er when he was young? “When her body was even­tu­al­ly found, a night­dress had been dragged up over her naked body and was cov­er­ing her face.”

The artist him­self would­n’t have thought so. “Psy­chol­o­gy did­n’t inter­est Magritte, who avoid­ed any in-depth inter­pre­ta­tion of his work,” Payne says, and yet his work “offers so much oppor­tu­ni­ty for arm­chair analy­sis.” Employ­ing an “extreme con­trast between the drab­ness of his style and the extra­or­di­nary sub­ject mat­ter,” he demon­strat­ed his under­stand­ing that peo­ple want to see what’s hid­den, that remov­ing what they expect “cre­ates a ten­sion and an anx­i­ety,” and that “if the style of the image does­n’t attract atten­tion, the irra­tional­i­ty of the image becomes even more shock­ing.” Giv­en Magrit­te’s cur­rent stature, it may come as a sur­prise to hear that his paint­ing did­n’t earn him much in his life­time. But giv­en his evi­dent abil­i­ty to manip­u­late view­ers’ thoughts and feel­ings through visu­al means alone, it won’t come as a sur­prise to hear that he made his mon­ey run­ning an adver­tis­ing agency.

Relat­ed con­tent:

René Magritte’s Ear­ly Art Deco Posters (1924–1927)

The Home Movies of Two Sur­re­al­ists: Look Inside the Lives of Man Ray & René Magritte

How Famous Paint­ings Inspired Cin­e­mat­ic Shots in the Films of Taran­ti­no, Gilliam, Hitch­cock & More: A Big Super­cut

An Intro­duc­tion to Sur­re­al­ism: The Big Aes­thet­ic Ideas Pre­sent­ed in Three Videos

Great Art Explained: Watch 15 Minute Intro­duc­tions to Great Works by Warhol, Rothko, Kahlo, Picas­so & More

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

If you were to see Jean-Hon­oré Frag­o­nard’s L’Escar­po­lette, or The Swing, at the Wal­lace Col­lec­tion, you might not think par­tic­u­lar­ly hard about it. Though all the sub­tle light effects that make the young woman in pink pop out of the lush gar­den that sur­rounds her are impres­sive, grant­ed — and they’ve become even more so since the paint­ing’s recent restora­tion — there does­n’t seem to be much else of inter­est at first glance. But take a sec­ond glance, and you may well get a sense of what, back in the sev­en­teen-six­ties, made this com­mis­sion “so raunchy, many artists would­n’t have done it for all the mon­ey in the world.”

So says the nar­ra­tor of the Art Deco video above, which promis­es an expla­na­tion of why The Swing “isn’t as inno­cent as it seems.” Take, for exam­ple, the young man reclin­ing in the can­vas low­er-left cor­ner, whose ecsta­t­ic expres­sion can per­haps be explained by what’s entered his line of sight. But “for­get about the fact that he can see up her skirt: her ankle is show­ing, a very erot­ic ges­ture at the time.”

All of this inten­si­fies when we know the sto­ry behind the paint­ing, and specif­i­cal­ly that “the man who com­mis­sioned the paint­ing is the man in the bush, and he’s also the wom­an’s lover, not her hus­band.” Is her hus­band the old­er fel­low crouched in the oppo­site cor­ner, clutch­ing the swing’s reins? Per­haps, but like any piece of art worth regard­ing, this one leaves room for inter­pre­ta­tion.

Still, if you under­stand some­thing of the mores of its time and place, there’s no mis­tak­ing its tit­il­lat­ing intent. None of Frag­o­nard’s con­tem­po­raries could have imag­ined that this paint­ing would one day hang in a pub­lic gallery for all the world to see, com­mis­sioned as it was for dis­play only in a pri­vate home. Many paint­ings were in the time of Roco­co, “a style of art that comes out of the Baroque,” as art his­to­ri­an Steven Zuck­er says in the Smarthis­to­ry video just above, which despite hav­ing “jet­ti­soned the seri­ous­ness, the moral­i­ty” of its pre­de­ces­sor, nev­er­the­less retained “a sense of ener­gy, a sense of move­ment.” The Swing remains “a per­fect expres­sion of the friv­o­li­ty, the lux­u­ry, and the indul­gence of the Roco­co” — and a reminder, as the Art Deco video puts it, that “what­ev­er hap­pens in the mys­ti­cal gar­den, stays in the mys­ti­cal fairy gar­den.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Scan­dalous Paint­ing That Helped Cre­ate Mod­ern Art: An Intro­duc­tion to Édouard Manet’s Olympia

What Makes Vermeer’s The Milk­maid a Mas­ter­piece?: A Video Intro­duc­tion

When John Singer Sargent’s “Madame X” Scan­dal­ized the Art World in 1884

Why Does This Lady Have a Fly on Her Head?: A Curi­ous Look at a 15th-Cen­tu­ry Por­trait

Gus­tav Klimt’s Icon­ic Paint­ing The Kiss: An Intro­duc­tion to Aus­tri­an Painter’s Gold­en, Erot­ic Mas­ter­piece (1908)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

We know that Michelan­ge­lo wrote gro­cery lists; now we have evi­dence that Leonar­do wrote resumes. “Before he was famous, before he paint­ed the Mona Lisa and the Last Sup­per, before he invent­ed the heli­copter, before he drew the most famous image of man, before he was all of these things, Leonar­do da Vin­ci was an arti­fi­cer, an armor­er, a mak­er of things that go ‘boom,’ ” writes Marc Cen­del­la on his blog about job-search­ing and recruit­ment advice. “Like you, he had to put togeth­er a resume to get his next gig. So in 1482, at the age of 30, he wrote out a let­ter and a list of his capa­bil­i­ties and sent it off to Ludovi­co il Moro, Duke of Milan.” Hav­ing yet to estab­lish his rep­u­ta­tion as per­haps the Ital­ian Renais­sance’s most respect­ed poly­math, Leonar­do spelled him­self out, in trans­la­tion, as fol­lows:

Most Illus­tri­ous Lord, Hav­ing now suf­fi­cient­ly con­sid­ered the spec­i­mens of all those who pro­claim them­selves skilled con­trivers of instru­ments of war, and that the inven­tion and oper­a­tion of the said instru­ments are noth­ing dif­fer­ent from those in com­mon use: I shall endeav­or, with­out prej­u­dice to any one else, to explain myself to your Excel­len­cy, show­ing your Lord­ship my secret, and then offer­ing them to your best plea­sure and appro­ba­tion to work with effect at oppor­tune moments on all those things which, in part, shall be briefly not­ed below.

1. I have a sort of extreme­ly light and strong bridges, adapt­ed to be most eas­i­ly car­ried, and with them you may pur­sue, and at any time flee from the ene­my; and oth­ers, secure and inde­struc­tible by fire and bat­tle, easy and con­ve­nient to lift and place. Also meth­ods of burn­ing and destroy­ing those of the ene­my.

2. I know how, when a place is besieged, to take the water out of the trench­es, and make end­less vari­ety of bridges, and cov­ered ways and lad­ders, and oth­er machines per­tain­ing to such expe­di­tions.

3. If, by rea­son of the height of the banks, or the strength of the place and its posi­tion, it is impos­si­ble, when besieg­ing a place, to avail one­self of the plan of bom­bard­ment, I have meth­ods for destroy­ing every rock or oth­er fortress, even if it were found­ed on a rock, etc.

4. Again, I have kinds of mor­tars; most con­ve­nient and easy to car­ry; and with these I can fling small stones almost resem­bling a storm; and with the smoke of these cause great ter­ror to the ene­my, to his great detri­ment and con­fu­sion.

5. And if the fight should be at sea I have kinds of many machines most effi­cient for offense and defense; and ves­sels which will resist the attack of the largest guns and pow­der and fumes.

6. I have means by secret and tor­tu­ous mines and ways, made with­out noise, to reach a des­ig­nat­ed spot, even if it were need­ed to pass under a trench or a riv­er.

7. I will make cov­ered char­i­ots, safe and unat­tack­able, which, enter­ing among the ene­my with their artillery, there is no body of men so great but they would break them. And behind these, infantry could fol­low quite unhurt and with­out any hin­drance.

8. In case of need I will make big guns, mor­tars, and light ord­nance of fine and use­ful forms, out of the com­mon type.

9. Where the oper­a­tion of bom­bard­ment might fail, I would con­trive cat­a­pults, man­gonels, tra­boc­chi, and oth­er machines of mar­vel­lous effi­ca­cy and not in com­mon use. And in short, accord­ing to the vari­ety of cas­es, I can con­trive var­i­ous and end­less means of offense and defense.

10. In times of peace I believe I can give per­fect sat­is­fac­tion and to the equal of any oth­er in archi­tec­ture and the com­po­si­tion of build­ings pub­lic and pri­vate; and in guid­ing water from one place to anoth­er.

11. I can car­ry out sculp­ture in mar­ble, bronze, or clay, and also I can do in paint­ing what­ev­er may be done, as well as any oth­er, be he who he may.

Again, the bronze horse may be tak­en in hand, which is to be to the immor­tal glo­ry and eter­nal hon­or of the prince your father of hap­py mem­o­ry, and of the illus­tri­ous house of Sforza.

And if any of the above-named things seem to any­one to be impos­si­ble or not fea­si­ble, I am most ready to make the exper­i­ment in your park, or in what­ev­er place may please your Excel­len­cy – to whom I com­ment myself with the utmost humil­i­ty, etc.

Even the dens­est fif­teenth-cen­tu­ry Duke, I wager, could see the use in a man able to make portable bridges, get water out of trench­es, destroy rock built upon rock, fling a storm of stones, for­ti­fy ves­sels, pass under rivers, and make every­thing from “big guns,” cat­a­pults, man­gonels, and tra­boc­chi to unat­tack­able cov­ered char­i­ots. Though Leonar­do under­stand­ably con­cen­trates on his wartime engi­neer­ing skills, he also touch­es on the range of oth­er dis­ci­plines — Renais­sance man, remem­ber — he has mas­tered, like archi­tec­ture, sculp­ture, and paint­ing. Per­haps most impres­sive­ly of all, he rat­tles off all these points with­out seem­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly boast­ful. “You’ll notice he doesn’t recite past achieve­ments,” Cen­del­la adds, “because those are about his achieve­ments, and not about the Duke’s needs.” Still, he might have added that, giv­en just a few more years, he could design a pret­ty cap­ti­vat­ing organ.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2014.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Michelangelo’s Hand­writ­ten 16th-Cen­tu­ry Gro­cery List

Leonar­do da Vinci’s Note­books Get Dig­i­tized: Where to Read the Renais­sance Man’s Man­u­scripts Online

Leonar­do Da Vinci’s To-Do List from 1490: The Plan of a Renais­sance Man

Who cre­at­ed the first work of abstract art has long been a fraught ques­tion indeed. Bet­ter, per­haps, to ask who first said of a work of art that a kid could have made it. A strong con­tender in that divi­sion is the Russ­ian artist Véra Pes­tel, whom his­to­ry remem­bers as hav­ing react­ed to Kaz­imir Male­vich’s 1915 paint­ing Black Square with the words “Any­one can do this! Even a child can do this!” Yes, writes nov­el­ist Tatyana Tol­staya a cen­tu­ry lat­er in the New York­er, “any child could have per­formed this sim­ple task, although per­haps chil­dren lack the patience to fill such a large sec­tion with the same col­or.” And in any case, time hav­ing tak­en its toll, Male­vich’s square does­n’t look quite as black as it used to.

Nor was the square ever quite so square as we imag­ine it. “Its sides aren’t par­al­lel or equal in length, and the shape isn’t quite cen­tered on the can­vas,” says the nar­ra­tor of the ani­mat­ed TED-Ed les­son above. Instead, Male­vich placed the form slight­ly off-kil­ter, giv­ing it the appear­ance of move­ment, and the white sur­round­ing it a liv­ing, vibrat­ing qual­i­ty.”

Fair enough, but is it art? If you’d asked Male­vich him­self, he might have said it sur­passed art. In 1913,  he “real­ized that even the most cut­ting-edge artists were still just paint­ing objects from every­day life, but he was irre­sistibly drawn to what he called ‘the desert,’ where noth­ing is real except feel­ing.” Hence his inven­tion of the style known as Supre­ma­tism, “a depar­ture from the world of objects so extreme, it went beyond abstrac­tion.”

Male­vich made bold claims for Supre­ma­tism in gen­er­al and Black Square in par­tic­u­lar. “Up until now there were no attempts at paint­ing as such, with­out any attribute of real life,” he wrote. “Paint­ing was the aes­thet­ic side of a thing, but nev­er was orig­i­nal and an end in itself.” As Tol­staya puts it, he “once and for all drew an uncross­able line that demar­cat­ed the chasm between old art and new art, between a man and his shad­ow, between a rose and a cas­ket, between life and death, between God and the Dev­il. In his own words, he reduced every­thing to the ‘zero of form.’ ” She calls this zero’s emer­gence in such a stark form “one of the most fright­en­ing events in art in all of its his­to­ry of exis­tence.” If so, here we have an argu­ment for not let­ting young chil­dren see Black Square and endur­ing the con­se­quent night­mares — even if they could have paint­ed it them­selves.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Down­load 144 Beau­ti­ful Books of Russ­ian Futur­ism: Mayakovsky, Male­vich, Khleb­nikov & More (1910–30)

The Tree of Mod­ern Art: Ele­gant Draw­ing Visu­al­izes the Devel­op­ment of Mod­ern Art from Delacroix to Dalí (1940)

Down­load Russ­ian Futur­ist Book Art (1910–1915): The Aes­thet­ic Rev­o­lu­tion Before the Polit­i­cal Rev­o­lu­tion

Who Paint­ed the First Abstract Paint­ing?: Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky? Hilma af Klint? Or Anoth­er Con­tender?

Steve Mar­tin on How to Look at Abstract Art

An Inter­ac­tive Social Net­work of Abstract Artists: Kandin­sky, Picas­so, Bran­cusi & Many More

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.