| The Son of Man | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | René Magritte |
| Year | 1964 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Movement | Surrealism |
| Dimensions | 116 cm × 89 cm (45.67 in × 35 in) |
| Location | Private collection |
The Son of Man (French: Le fils de l'homme) is a 1964 painting by the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. It is perhaps his best-known artwork.[1]
Magritte painted it as a self-portrait.[2] The painting consists of a man in an overcoat and a bowler hat standing in front of a low wall, beyond which are the sea and a cloudy sky. The man's face is largely obscured by a hovering green apple. However, the man's eyes can be seen peeking over the edge of the apple. Another subtle feature is that the man's left arm appears to bend backwards at the elbow.
About the painting, Magritte said:
At least it hides the face partly well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It's something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.[3]
- ^ Pound, Cath (5 December 2017). "Magritte and the subversive power of his pipe". BBC. Retrieved 2018-01-05.
- ^ Chernick, Karen (April 12, 2018). "Why Magritte Was Fascinated with Bowler Hats". Artsy.
- ^ In a radio interview with Jean Neyens (1965), cited in Torczyner, Magritte: Ideas and Images, trans. Richard Millen (New York: Harry N. Abrams), p. 172.