"The idea behind this exhibition is really to expand our understanding of Magritte," Tate Liverpool curator DarrenPih explains of "The Pleasure Principle," a new show that strives to reposition the Belgian artist as more than just one of Surrealism's most iconic painters. He was, in fact, a maker of home movies too, as well as a photographer, a commercial artist, and erotica dabbler — a fact displayed in the exhibition's extensive display of photos, erotic works, and films. But there is still much to learn about his well-known paintings, as ARTINFO UK's Coline Milliard learned on a tour of the show with Pih, who explained some of the exhibition's key pieces.  

"The Menaced Assassin" (L'Assassin menacé), 1927
Oil on canvas

This is an unusually large painting, and a very macabre scene. It reallyshows how the Surrealists were obsessed with shock encounter and violent crime. It also shows how Magritte had a preoccupation with Fantomas, a fictional crime figure who was popular from silent movies and serialized pulp novels. The image draws on the language of cinematiccomposition; it is almost an appropriation of a Fantomas film still. The scale of the work also corresponds to the conventions of cinema. There's a sense that the image is projected rather than painted. At thistime, Magritte was still creating commercial advertising. He created what is regarded as his first Surrealist painting in 1925. So with this work, he is still experimenting.

"Untitled (Sky with Biomorphs and Words)," 1928
Oil on canvas

This work is, in many ways, untypical. It was painted at a time of rapidexperimentation. The period from 1926 to 1930 was highly productive forMagritte. At that time he created around a quarter of his entire painted output. He lived in Paris, where he was in proximity to André Breton and other figures such as Joan Miró — and in fact Miró influencedhis work strongly during this period. About a quarter of the paintings Magritte created in Paris are text/image works. In this work, Magritte explores formlessness. It's done in an unusually painterly manner, with heavy impastos, and forms dissolving into blobs of paint. The centre of the work is highly textured; it seems very improvised. The words on the biomorphs are handwritten. It's a very spontaneous work, unlike many ofthe other works by Magritte.

"Let Out of School" (La Sortie de l'école), 1927
Oil on canvas

This work exemplifies the idea of the stage-set composition, with the exaggerated perspective, wooden floorboards, and the action of the image contained within a very claustrophobic interior. The shape is a visual element Magritte used in many of his works around that time, this sort of black metamorphic-type form. It seems to be something that is both liquid and solid. Ideas of metamorphosis, of shifting in materiality from one stage to another, were really important to Magritte. In many works, you see flesh in the process of being transformed into wood. Thisis a very powerful motif for Magritte. This is also the only painting by the artist in which you can see a fan, and this really corresponds tohis work in advertising. The fan similarly appears in the Surrealist collages produced for his commercial art.

"Time Transfixed" (La Durée poignardée), 1938
Oil on canvas

"Time Transfixed" is a painting that was owned by Edward James, one of therare English patrons and collectors of Surrealist art. Magritte spent most of his life in Brussels, but he was invited to stay with James in London in early 1937, a period during which he produced three major works. James also went on to acquire some fairly important works by Magritte, including "Time Transfixed." There is a very interesting correspondence between Magritte and the patron. The artist thought that the ideal place to hang "Time Transfixed" would be a staircase — your visitors would be "transfixed" on the ground floor. This work is an emblematic Magritte image, with its Surreal juxtaposition of a steam train emerging from the fireplace, which is the fireplace of James's London home. The piece wasn't created in London, but it was painted withthe patron in mind.

"Golconda," 1953
Oil on canvas

"Golconda" is the rain of bowler-hatted men, which expresses Magritte's concern with anonymity and the idea of blending in. He really associatedthe bowler-hatted man with the "ordinary man," this depersonalized individual. The idea of anonymity was a really key concern for the Brussels Surrealists and for Magritte. The image of the bowler-hatted man has really been identified with Magritte himself. He adopted the bowler hat and the grey suit as his own self-image. He wanted to blend in and be among us, but at the same time he could be working to stabilize an understanding of the world. There is an aspect of self-portraiture — it's not Magritte, but it is Magritte's self-image. There's a lot of ambiguity in this piece.