Les fleurs de l’abîme 1928

René Magritte made 'Les fleurs de l’abîme' with oil paint and a knack for the uncanny. Look at how he renders the leaves, the way the light rolls across them, kind of like glossy car paint. This smoothness gives them an air of unreality, like a stage set. The mountains are painted thickly, with fluid marks like soft-serve, suggesting weight and texture, while the metallic orbs sitting snug within the leaves have a mechanical sheen. It’s the contrast between these different textures, the natural and the artificial, that really grabs me. See the way he uses gradients to create depth, especially around the edges of the leaves? It's subtle but makes the whole thing pop. Magritte's work reminds me a bit of de Chirico, another master of dreamscapes. But where de Chirico feels like a memory fading, Magritte is like a puzzle daring you to solve it, even though there's no solution.