From: Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Le poison was the first in a series of works known as L’empire des lumières (The Empire of Lights).
The gouache shows silhouettes of houses with lighted windows.
The moon shines and the stars twinkle on the walls of the houses, but at the same time the sky is as light as during the day.
The simultaneous rendering of day and night, with a light blue sky and dark façades visible because of artificial light, would inspire the artist for a long time.
René Magritte (1898-1967) made variations on this theme in no fewer than seventeen oil paintings and ten gouaches over a period of more than ten years (from the late 1940s to the early 1960s).