Fine realities 1964

René Magritte made this dreamlike oil painting, Fine realities, with a palette that seems to float between waking and sleep. Magritte’s brushwork is so smooth, it almost hides itself. The apple, a vibrant green orb, is so realistically rendered you can practically taste its tartness, while the table cloth appears as soft as, well, a table cloth! Look closely at how the edges of the cloth and the surface of the apple are blurred in tiny shifts of tone. It’s like the whole scene exists in a slightly out-of-focus world. It’s a study in contrasts, this precise, meticulous technique used to depict such an illogical scene. Magritte, like de Chirico, makes a world that’s both familiar and deeply strange. He makes us ask questions like ‘what is real?’ and ‘what is reality?’ Is it the apple, the table, or the shimmering world around it? Maybe reality is just what we choose to focus on.