René Magrittes ‘Les jours gigantesques’

Can art provide a force to social reflection and shaping, that abstract laws and policy-making cannot reach? René Magritte (1898-1967), Belgian surrealist painter, touches upon the driving force towards a more equal society with his exploration of (gender-based) violence and sexuality. Les jours gigantesques (1928) depicts a scene of sexual abuse: a man with invisible face attempts to unwittingly overpower a naked woman. It forms a particularly dark, disturbing, and frightening image that causes a shock to the viewer. Magritte confronts the viewer with the societal position of (Belgian) women during the Interbellum: victim of not merely brutal shocking violence, but of a broader inequality that is deeply rooted in our society. This article explores how Magritte’s oeuvre is a carrier of an intrinsic force that directly causes an action (shock) in the viewers’ sphere and brings them to a higher consciousness. An analysis of Les jours gigantesques and related works unveils how René Magritte wields this shock to a higher consciousness towards the (surrealist) image of women as sexual, subordinate objects of lust. The artist’s intention to generate a greater social consciousness of (formal) equality between men and women, situated within the prevailing patriarchal zeitgeist in 1928, leads this article to see Magritte as ‘un féministe avant la lettre’.