Le chants de maldoror, 1948

Belgian painter René Magritte was a member of the Surrealist movement that started in Paris in the 1920s and swept across the world, flourishing actively for several decades. Surrealism was concerned with the exploration of the subconscious and the dream-state, and his paintings are indeed very dreamlike in quality. René Magritte used a realistic style to portray commonplace objects in odd juxtapositions, such as a train emerging from a fireplace, pieces of fruit wearing masks, or an enormous green apple that filled an entire room. René Magritte worked in oil paint on canvas in a representational, illustrative style, in which subject matter was more important than painting technique. René Magritte used many iconic images repeatedly in his work, such as the bowler hat, fluffy white clouds in a blue sky, and round steel bells. He liked to challenge people's preconceptions, albeit in a friendly way, and his paintings are well-known for being clever and even somewhat irreverent. A good example of this is his painting of a pipe with the words Ceci n'est pas une pipe This is not a pipe) to remind the viewer that it is indeed not a pipe, but a painting Just try to stuff it with tobacco he observed). The title of this work, The Treachery of Images, reminds us not to take what we see too seriously. (Artist website)