Dream-Displacement and Magritte's "Blank Signature"

In the past few days, I have been working on an analysis of Rene Magritte's famous painting "The Blank Signature." Having now seen the painting at the National Gallery of Art (just a day before it was taken off view!), I now feel comfortable interpreting the work and attempting to discover some Freudian influences.

To begin, I believe it is necessary to demonstrate that Rene Magritte was in fact a Surrealist influenced by Freud. According to the website of the Magritte Museum (located in Brussels), Magritte was a close friend of Andre Breton and a prominent member of the Surrealist movement; he even helped Breton publish the journal La Revolution Surrealiste. When referring to Breton after his death in 1966, Magritte once said

...his eyes are closed, but eyes open or shut, one can’t forget that his mind was seeking the Truth through poetry, love and liberty.

Now that it is clear that Rene Magritte was a Surrealist and greatly respected the theories of Breton's Surrealist Manifesto, we must ask the question: how exactly did Sigmund Freud affect Magritte's paintings, specifically "The Blank Signature?" Let us start by distinguishing Magritte's painting style from other Surrealist artists like the early Salvador Dali or Yves Tanguy.

The first thought that comes to my mind when viewing this painting, besides the bewilderment experienced from the spatial illusions, is the general realism of the painting. After all, the horse, rider, and trees are not deformed in any way, and the colors of the painting are also realistic, from the grass and trees to the horse and rider themselves. This is in direct contrast with other Surrealist paintings like Dali's "Persistence of Memory" and Tanguy's "Look of Amber" (I was also able to view this painting at the NGA), which both display relatively abstract, unrealistic scenes.

Because of the realism in Magritte's painting, I was immediately reminded of Sigmund Freud's theory of dream-displacement. In chapter 5.A. of The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud states that

...the psychic process which we have recognized in dream-displacement proves to be not a morbidly deranged process, but one merely differing from the normal, one of a more primary nature. Thus we interpret the fact that the dream-content takes up remnants of trivial experiences as a manifestation of dream-distortion (by displacement)....

Also in chapter 1.E. he states

Those authors who, in general, judge so unfavourably of the psychic activities of the dreamer nevertheless agree that dreams do retain a certain remnant of psychic activity.

In short, Freud is stating that dream-displacement is the process by which a seemingly trivial idea or image has a piece of it replaced by something that does not fit, something disturbing or exciting or disorienting; in essence, it is the very thing that makes the dream different from an everyday occurrence and "the most essential part of the dream-work" (chapter 6.B.). And that is to say, essential both in its attraction of the dreamer's attention and also in its creation of the dream's primary meaning and significance.

Through a close studying of Freud's writings (and of his own dreams), perhaps Magritte believed that his paintings were closer to expressing the juxtaposition inherent within dream-images. Although other Surrealist painters used the technique of juxtaposition effectively, they did not convey this idea of dream-displacement and its retention of general reality. This is where Magritte differs: his painting is generally a real image. The "displacement" that occurs in the piece is the spatial illusion, with distant trees (and even the sky and horizon) coming forward in front of the horse, and the nearby trees getting lost behind it. This technique creates a very disorienting and intriguing image that more-closely resembles an actual dream as described by Freud. This distortion also gives the painting its significance and meaning, just as displacement does in an actual dream. Some of Magritte's other paintings, like "The Empire of Light," also retain general aspects of reality, choosing to juxtapose common images with each other instead of using surreal images as the means for paradox.

Thus, I find it safe to conclude that Sigmund Freud's primary influence on Rene Magritte's work was his theory of dream-displacement. Just as Freud believed that displacement was the most essential part of a dream, Magritte made it the focal point of many of his paintings, bringing this theory into the realm of painting and leaving a major impact on the history of Western art.