High Society 1962

René Magritte made this oil on canvas painting, High Society, sometime in the twentieth century. I can imagine Magritte at his easel, carefully filling the shape of a man with the sky, playing with the boundaries between inside and outside. I wonder, was it a challenge, or just plain fun? It makes me think about how the figure has come to appear here, and how the artist might have carefully built up layers of meaning, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, not with grand, sweeping gestures, but with clear, deliberate strokes. There's a conversation happening here with other painters, for sure, especially the surrealists who were digging beneath the surface of everyday life and messing with your head. What I appreciate most is the way this guy makes me question what is real, what is visible, and what lies hidden beneath.