René Magritte: Fine Art vs Advertising

Since the late 19th century when the advertising industry was born, there has always been a great connection between advertising and fine art. It is obvious that eye-catching campaigns with usage of affective paintings are necessary for ad agencies success. And the Belgian Surrealist René Magritte has had a biggest impact on the advertising industry both at his time and today.



On the other hand, Magritte’s work as a painter was influenced by his work as an advertising creative. It all had started in the early 1920s with Magritte's work Venereal Disease (1918).

"This poster was designed for a competition launched by the Belgian government in an attempt to fight against venereal diseases. It is emblematic of a 20-year-old Magritte intent on discovering and mastering the secrets of advertising. Magritte took up advertising for two reasons: firstly because it offered him the opportunity to make artistic experiments, and secondly because it enabled him to cover small expenses" (http://www.comanalysis.ch/ComAnalysis/Publication84.htm).

Personally speaking, I believe that Magritte's experiments with the relationship between meanings and words or images opened a new path in advertising for the next generation of creative minds. By giving familiar objects new names and creating for them new visual shells the artist gave us a key to people minds and taught us to create new meanings. "No object is so closely linked with its name that one could not give it another name that suits it better" (R. Magritte).