“Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.”

Rene magritte was a famous surrealist artist, but he didn’t gain his fame until his 50’s. In the beginning of his career, Rene experimented with many different styles and medias and realized that the form of art he most enjoyed was surrealism. After a few years he had his first showing of his work. During this period he was producing about one piece every day, including a variety of styles for each visitor to enjoy. The critics abused his exhibition and depressed by his apparent failure, he moved to Paris. Here, he became friends with artist Andre Breton, the founder of surrealism. Rene created a style of concealing things within his paintings. To him, what is concealed is more important than what you can see. If he wrapped something in linen, or hid a head under a hood, it wasn’t meant to hide the subject as to create an effect of alienation. While the german occupied Belguim during world war two, Rene supported himself by creating fake paintings of other artists like Van Gogh and Picasso. In his later life and career he continued to make his own art and rarely ever strayed from his surrealist style.  Some of his favorite themes were floating rock, using an inanimate object within a human figure, or creating a painting within a painting.

“The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown, since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.