The dark side …
In the popular imagination, Magritte is the guy who does apples and bowler hats. Yet, as this ominous image of a headless, ashen woman makes clear, he could be penny-dreadful dark.
Word play …
It was created during his three years in Paris between 1927 and 1930. At this time he developed his signature mismatch of words and images (“This is not a pipe” etc). He was also making paintings that conjured mysteries, coaxing our minds to fill in their gaps.
Booby trap …
This is a painting with boobs on the brain. They’re in the shadows and the suggestive cracks on the wall, which also conjure closed eyes, unlike the woman’s breasts, which could be eyes wide open. Is that a patch of moonlight or a mirror? Is it all a reflection of our own thoughts?
Face off …
Magritte made a number of paintings with missing faces. They’ve been read as a response to him allegedly witnessing, aged 14, his mother’s drowned body pulled from the sea, with her nightdress tangled around her head.
René Magritte (Or: The Rule of Metaphor), Luxembourg & Dayan, W1, to 26 May
