L’autre son de cloche 1951

René Magritte made this painting, L’autre son de cloche, with oil on canvas using a meticulous approach. I’m so drawn to the way Magritte sets up these juxtapositions, an apple and a globe floating in a starry night! It feels like he's offering us a riddle or a joke. Look at the smooth, almost airbrushed quality of the paint. There’s no visible brushwork, no trace of the artist’s hand, so the objects feel very present, but also removed from reality. The apple is rendered in shades of green and yellow, it looks juicy and real, in contrast with the globe, which is rendered in muted blues and grays, almost ghostly. Those tiny stars scattered in the background, they add to the dreamy, surreal quality of the piece. Magritte’s work always reminds me of de Chirico, with that same sense of mystery and the uncanny. It's like he’s inviting us to question our assumptions about the world, and to see things in a new, unexpected way.