Rene Magritte

Reading the article in my copy of this week's TIME magazine about the opening of a new museum in Brussels dedicated to this Belgian painter made me remember how extraordinary his works are. It's hard to choose a favourite considering the expansiveness of his oeuvre, but Young Girl Eating a Bird (first image) and his Lovers works (second image) stand out in my mind. There is something macabre about a girl chomping on a bird, blood flowing down her fingers. It signifies to me a loss of innocence. The swathing of the heads of the couple with white cloth transforms Lovers from a simple expression of love into a haunting image with possibly a deeper meaning. Could it be warning us that we don't actually know the true nature of our partners, though we may think otherwise? The expression 'Love is blind' comes to mind here, though with a twisted, sinister alternative meaning. But that's the beauty and genius of Magritte's works- they are presented to us in the form of illogical puzzles, contradictions or grotesque distortions of nature, inviting us to guess on their meaning. And there is no right guess, which makes it all the more interesting.