Le palais de rideaux 1928

René Magritte created "Le palais de rideaux" using oil paint during a period when surrealist artists were keen to undermine our sense of reality. In the painting, we see the edge of a forest, but the trees in the foreground are like curtains made of stone. One is closed, blocking our view, and the other is open, revealing a blue sky with clouds. Made in Belgium, the painting plays with ideas about what is hidden and what is revealed, but it also makes us think about the history of art and the way paintings function as windows onto the world. We can examine how images create meaning by reading about the artist's life, and looking at how the artist was influenced by others. Art historians make use of archival sources, such as letters and exhibition reviews to interpret the role of art as something rooted in social context.