Empire of Light

One of the versions of René Magritte's lifelong series 'L'Empire des lumières' ('The Empire of Light'), which he repeated more than twenty times between the late 1940s and 1960s. A quiet suburban street at night, its single lamplit house, and its windows glowing warmly stand beneath a bright blue, cloud-dappled afternoon sky — two times of day calmly coexisting on one canvas. The simple but insoluble contradiction is one of Magritte's purest Surrealist propositions. The version held by Peggy Guggenheim in Venice, painted in 1953–1954, is among the most frequently reproduced Surrealist images in the museum's permanent collection.

Exhibition Venue

Peggy Guggenheim Collection

Venice, Italy