La Nuit d’amour. 1947

René Magritte created this oil painting, La Nuit d’amour, a night of love, sometime in the 20th century. It depicts a grouping of bird-like figures against a stage-like backdrop. Magritte was Belgian, and his paintings are deeply embedded in the social and cultural history of Europe. The surrealist movement to which he belonged challenged the established order after the First World War. Surrealist artists questioned the power of reason and the value of a capitalist society that had led to such destruction. Here, the birds suggest peace, but they are stony and still. The candle, the glass of water, and the distant cityscape create an atmosphere of bourgeois domesticity. The curtain implies a theater, a stage, or perhaps a barrier between private life and the world beyond. Art historians can look at the philosophical writings of the time, the publications and manifestos of the surrealist movement, and even the artist's biography to better understand the meaning of this unsettling image.