How does this artwork elucidate its Quotes from the artist and André Breton?
Magritte commented on the paintings in a televised interview in 1956, about the time he received his Guggenheim Prize.: 177 p.  
For me, the conception of a painting is an idea of one thing or several things that can become visible through my painting. It is understood that all ideas are not conceptions for pictures. Obviously, an idea must be sufficiently stimulating for me to undertake to paint faithfully the thing or things I have ideated.
	The conception of a picture, that is, the idea, is not visible in the picture: an idea cannot be seen with the eyes. What is represented in a picture is what is visible to the eyes, it is the thing or things that must have been ideated. Thus, what are represented in the picture The Empire of Light are the things I ideated, i.e. a nighttime landscape and a sky such as we see during the day. The landscape evokes night and the sky evokes day. I call this power: poetry.	If I believe this evocation has such poetic power, it is because among other reasons, I have always felt the greatest interest in night and in day, yet without ever having preferred one or the other. This great personal interest in night and day is a feeling of admiration and astonishment.": 177 p. 
In 1964, John and Dominique de Menil organized an exhibition of Magritte's work in Houston, Texas. The Belgian surrealist attended the exhibit, replete in an incongruous cowboy hat and boots. André Breton wrote the introduction for the exhibition catalogue and commented on the 'Empire of Light paintings.
"Rene Magritte's work and thought could not fail to come out at the opposite pole from the zone of facility - and of capitulation - that goes by the name of "chiaroscuro." To him, inevitably, fell the task of separating the "subtle" from the "dense", without which effort no transmutation is possible. To attack this problem called for all his audacity - to extract simultaneously what is light from the shadow and what is shadow from the light (L'Empire des Lumieres). In this work the violence done to accepted ideas and conventions is such (I - Breton - have this from Magritte) that most of those who go by quickly think they saw the stars in the daytime sky.": 7 p.
André Breton Dominique de Menil John Houston chiaroscuro Dominique