The evening gown 1954

René Magritte made this painting of a woman with her back turned, gazing towards the sea, with paint, sometime before his death in 1967. I feel like Magritte is saying something to us about presence here. We are faced with a scene, but the main character’s back is turned! What are we meant to look at? I wonder about the way a painting can become a place to meditate on seeing itself. Magritte was a master of this paradox. It looks so simple, but the more you look the weirder it gets. The moon is just sort of floating there above her head! I admire how, in painting, simple elements like this can add layers of complexity. It reminds me of other artists that turn painting into a place of questions.