From men in bowler hats, floating in the sky, to a painting of a pipe above the caption "this is not a pipe", René Magritte (1898–1967) created an echo-chamber of object and
image, name and thing, reality and representation.
Like other Surrealist works, Magritte's paintings combine a precise, mimetic technique withabnormal, alienating configurations which defy the laws of scale, logic, and science:
A comb the height of a wardrobe, rocks that float in the sky, clouds that drift through an open door. The result is a direct yet disorientating realm, often witty, often unsettling, and always
prompting us to look beyond the visible, to “what is hidden by what we see.”
This introductory book explores Magritte's vast repertoire of visual humor, paradox, and surprise which to this day makes us look and look again, not only at the painting, but at
our sense of self and the world.