The Empire of Light, II 1950

René Magritte made this painting, The Empire of Light, II, by layering light and dark, and who knows what else, and maybe even error! I really sympathize with Magritte here – you get the sense he’s playing with light and dark like a kid with a dimmer switch. Imagine him, brush in hand, trying to capture that exact moment when day and night collide. The creamy sky looks almost edible against the stark, matte darkness below. The glow from that single streetlight isn’t just illumination; it’s a beacon of surrealism, a challenge to our perceptions. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, about the nature of reality, what’s visible and invisible, and whether we can really trust what we see. Painters are always in dialogue, each one borrowing, riffing, and responding to the others. Magritte’s night-day-dreamscape feels like a precursor to so many painters who've embraced ambiguity, inviting us to see the world not in fixed terms, but as an open, ongoing question.