Artists — cartoonists included — rarely preserve and exhibit the drafts of their work, their proto-art. So we should be grateful to cartoonist Dan Misdea (in the latest, 2/26/24, New Yorker) for showing us René Magritte’s first approach to what became his surrealist painting The Son of Man:
(#1) And so the world lost the opportunity for a surrealist soft-porn masterpiece Adam in a Bowler
No doubt the model’s plaintive whining about having an apple glued to his dick encouraged Magritte to reconceptualize the work.
The actual Magritte. From Wikipedia:
(#2) Magritte’s finished productThe Son of Man (French: Le fils de l’homme) is a 1964 painting by the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. It is perhaps his best-known artwork.
Magritte painted it as a self-portrait. The painting consists of a man in an overcoat and a bowler hat standing in front of a low wall, beyond which are the sea and a cloudy sky. The man’s face is largely obscured by a hovering green apple. However, the man’s eyes can be seen peeking over the edge of the apple. Another subtle feature is that the man’s left arm appears to bend backwards at the elbow.
About the painting, Magritte said:
At least it hides the face partly well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It’s something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.
Ah, the tension, the conflict, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present: the essence of the cock tease in the cartoon Magritte’s initial conceptualization of his work.
The cartoonist. Dan Misdea is new on this blog and only recently embarked on a cartooning career, so some words about the creator of the artist in #1, from his website:
Dan Misdea is a cartoonist for The New Yorker and children’s book author from New Jersey.
After graduating from Penn State with a degree in Economics, he spent several years working in finance and accounting before becoming a cartoonist in 2020.
Since then, his work has appeared in The New Yorker, Air Mail, Narrative, The Times Luxury, Reader’s Digest, Weekly Humorist, The Golfer’s Journal, and elsewhere. He’s also contributed to anthologies such as Send Help! by Ellis Rosen and Jon Adams, and New Jersey Fan Club by Kerri Sullivan.
His first children’s book, The Light Inside, is available now. His next book, AB@C: And Other Gramograms, with Rob Meyerson is due to be released in Fall 2024.
Placing Misdea firmly in the grand traditions of American cartooning, a Psychiatrist cartoon of his, from the New Yorker of 10/2/23:
(#3) Mr. Softee in a therapy session
And then the cover of his children’s book and the publisher’s blurb for it:
(#4)
How far would you go to find your very best toy if it went missing? Join a timid jack-o’-lantern on an adventure through an eerie forest in this sweet and quirky wordless picture book!
Nighttime can be scary, especially when you don’t know what might be lurking in the dark. So this little jack-o’-lantern always keeps its favorite toy close by for comfort. But when a huge gust of wind separates them one day, the jack-o’-lantern must gather up bravery and set off on a journey — just as nighttime draws closer — to get its friend back.
Dan Misdea’s eye-catching artwork and charming story will remind readers that they can overcome most fears by trusting in themselves and finding the courage that lives inside their heart.
