Drawn
by the same Belgian painter as “Man in the Bowler Hat,” the surreal 1964
painting “The Son of Man” was painted by René Magritte as a self-portrait. The
scenery illustrates a man in an overcoat and a bowler hat standing in front of
a short wall. Behind this wall depicts a cloudy sky and a horizon of a sea. The
most curious aspect of this artwork is the hovering green apple in front of the
man’s face, making his identity unknown. I’ve seen this painting in many social
media platforms as part of a parody, featuring the same unidentified man
(Magritte) and his face covered by inquisitive items. The mysterious aura this
painting emanates was the element that sparked my initiative to delve further
into the hidden meanings behind Magritte’s portrait.
When
asked about the message behind his decision to obscure the face of his
self-portrait, Magritte responded, “Everything we see hides another thing, we
always want to see what is hidden behind what we see. There is an interest in
that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us.” Although his
reasoning was relatively oblique and could be ambiguous in regards to how the
public interprets his words, I could definitely understand Magritte’s attempt at
drawing contrast between “the visible that is present and the visible that is
hidden.” Maybe Magritte was fully aware of the human tendency to decipher
meaning from essentially anything that aren’t direct in an attempt to better
understand the person behind the work. His purposeful addition of a compelling
factor of the green apple accentuates his depiction of conflict between what is
seen and unseen.
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