Alice in Wonderland 1945

René Magritte made this painting, *Alice in Wonderland*, maybe with oils, and maybe not, who knows? What strikes me is its gentle, almost delicate touch, with forms emerging from a hazy ground. This is a painting made with a lot of looking. Take the tree: a face emerges from its trunk, an eye peeking through leaves, a nose jutting out. It’s uncanny, dreamlike. The light is evenly spread, and all of the colours are slightly chalky, which adds to the atmosphere, like a memory or a fable. Then there's the floating pear up to the right. This isn't photorealism, it's about something else entirely: a feeling, an atmosphere, a state of mind. Magritte reminds me of Giorgio de Chirico, they both played with a surreal sense of space and unsettling imagery, using traditional methods of painting to undermine our expectations of what painting can be. Ultimately, Magritte invites us to question everything we see, and isn't that what art is all about?