Magritte: The Uncanny Sublime

I argue that René Magritte visualises an aesthetic of the uncanny sublime by sustaining a tensive dynamic between the visible and the invisible, the known and the unknown. Because the revealing of the sublime is deferred, Magritte’s perspective derives more from a modernist post-religious context that is neither dependent on a metaphysical absolute, nor a secular renunciation of the sacred. This article therefore challenges the view that Magritte’s surrealist art belongs either to an anti-sublime tradition, one that dismantles any illusory solace to transcendent qualities, or a postmodern ideology that posits a fundamental split between representation and reality.