Titania 1948

René Magritte made this puzzling, colourful oil painting, Titania, in 1948. The image teems with bodies and faces in earthy hues of yellows, browns, and blues, set against a light ground. This is painting at its most visceral; I imagine Magritte in his studio, layering and excavating the painting’s surface, pushing and pulling at the composition. There’s a feeling of things emerging from the unconscious here; a hand pointing upwards, faces staring out at us, the curve of a shoulder. The paint is applied in broad strokes and blended with the canvas, like he’s conjuring the scene into being. It reminds me of Picabia’s surrealism. In the end, painting is always a conversation across time, a constant exchange of ideas between artists. It's a form of expression that thrives on ambiguity, offering endless possibilities for interpretation, resisting any single, fixed meaning.