The forbidden world 1949

René Magritte conjured this strange vision of a mermaid on a chaise longue, somewhere between 1948 and 1967. I imagine him, dabbing with oil paints, building up layers of short, broken brushstrokes. The palette is soft, salmon pinks, yellows, and sky blues. It’s interesting to see Magritte, known for his hard-edged surrealism, working in this softer, more painterly way. There’s an oddness to the composition: the mermaid is dreamy and sensual, and the coral reef feels like a stage set, but she is also contained. The more I look at her the more I wonder what Magritte was trying to say here? Was he exploring the tension between beauty and the grotesque, reality and fantasy? The way the tail fades into the cushions makes me think about other surrealist painters like Leonora Carrington or Remedios Varo, who created strange, mythological worlds in their work. Ultimately, painting lets us float between all those possible readings.