Pink Belles, Tattered Skies 1930

René Magritte made this painting, Pink Belles, Tattered Skies, with oil on canvas. The smooth, almost airbrushed finish feels deliberate, like he’s trying to trick us into thinking this strange world is real. The surface is so flat, you can hardly see any brushstrokes. It's like looking at a dream, carefully constructed but ultimately unreal. On the left, we see clouds, soft and fluffy. On the right, we have these bizarre floating balls with dark lines slicing through them, bobbing around in an orange sky. They look like pills! Magritte messes with our sense of scale and perspective. What is the relationship between the clouds and the pills? Is one a reflection of the other, or are they two completely different realities mashed together? It reminds me a bit of de Chirico, with that same sense of unsettling mystery. Ultimately, I think Magritte is telling us not to take anything at face value.