La voix du sang (The Voice of Blood), René Magritte

In the blue light of dusk, a solitary tree stands in a barren landscape. All we can make out in the darkness is its silhouette. But the tree conceals an astonishing inner life. The visible world seems to have been captured on canvas in keeping with the rules of realistic painting, and yet—nothing is as expected. This mysteriously inhabited tree is a recurring motif in the work of Surrealist painter René Magritte. Through the familiar form of the tree, the artist shakes up customary ways of seeing and thinking about things, and dream and reality merge.

René Magritte, La voix du sang (The Voice of Blood), 1959, mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, © Bildrecht, Vienna 2022