Composition au train 

René Magritte rendered this abstracted town scene with gouache on paper, a bird’s eye view of everyday life. Note the train engine emerging from the background. A potent symbol of modernity, the train evokes a sense of forward movement, industry, and progress, reflecting the early 20th-century fascination with technological advancement. The train as a motif appears across various cultures and times, from ancient Roman mosaics depicting chariot races to futuristic steampunk aesthetics. Yet, in Magritte’s hands, it is divorced from its conventional association with progress, becoming an unsettling presence, an emblem of the changing world but without clear direction. One is reminded of the myth of Janus, the two-faced god looking both backward and forward. Like Janus, the train embodies contradictory meanings, reminding us that progress is never linear and that the subconscious remembers even what we try to forget. The overall effect is to leave the viewer with an unsettling feeling, a sense of displacement.