The oil painting, "Son of Man" by Rene Magritte, was completed in 1964. The painting depicts a man in a suit and bowler hat; an average looking businessman of the era. The man wears a red tie, the only color in his outfit and the background is a mix of grays, blues, and white. A hovering apple hides the man’s face and he stands in front of a stone wall in which the hazy blue ocean peeks out behind him...
I love this painting and the messages that it conveys. This is the type of painting that really transports a person into another place. A painting that does this is a painting that successfully fulfills the reason for art: to carry the viewer into the artist’s mind and emotions.
In the "Son of Man" there is a mysterious, yet dull tone. The conventional demeanor of the figure adds to the dullness and so does the background. Aside from the flicker of bright red that is the man’s tie and the vibrant green apple, there really aren’t any other eye-popping colors. There is the blue of the ocean and sky, but the artist mutes the colors into an opaque bluish-gray blur. By doing this, more attention is directed to the figure and the apple.
Another atmosphere created from the painting is one that is almost eerie because of his wall-like black suit, which is highly contrasted next to the rest of the color used. It is not that it is just so deeply black but that it is such a large area of the picture. This makes me compelled to stare into that black void as if it were a wall of hidden meaning. It is also somewhat creepy or eerie because of how one of the man’s eyes escapes the apple’s blockage. This is as if only part of his identity succeeds to been seen by others.
The subject is placed directly in the center of the foreground, drawing all attention to what is going on with him and the apple. The artist most likely chose this composition to expose the man and his features. However by adding the apple in front of the face, the figure is no longer quite as exposed and a sense of mystery is created.
Magritte shows how even if a person is in plain sight, without the ability of facial recognition, the figure is hidden. I completely agree with this message because in reality people are only seen by the masks that they wear for other people. When the face is covered people don’t seem to understand what it is that they are observing.
They are unable to determine or guess the emotions of the covered face. No reaction can be seen from the face when it is addressed and leaves the viewer in the dark about who they are dealing with. When a persons eyes cannot be seen people feel uncomfortable associating with them because the eyes are a window to a persons emotions, without that window most feel intimidated.
This feeling of discomfort makes itself apparent to me in "Son of Man", but I am not intimidated by it because one of his eyes shows through....
An eerie sense is created not just because of the anonymity of the man but also because of how peaceful the background would seem without the presence of the man. Just like a normal day, not sunny but overcast with plain clouds.
The waves of the ocean behind him are still, just like the stiff man that appears before it. There is no wind, meaning there is no movement. Yet again all attention is therefore rested upon the presence of the mysterious individual. The apple is hiding the visible and this type of thing happens constantly in our world.
Magritte explains this constant occurrence like so, "Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us.
This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present."
It is because of the various contrasting moods and tones that make this piece of art visually appealing to me. The subtlety of the background colors mixed with the fierce intensity of the figure (foreground) is also visually appealing, but the painting is also mentally appealing. The normality of the man and the setting combined with the air of eerie mystery enticed by the hovering apple, to me, is a complex visual way to deliver a message about people’s simplistic recognition tendencies.
We see what is shown, but when things are unknown, people’s minds wander and they get in tune with their imagination. I personally enjoy a work of art that can make a viewer reflect on their own humanity. When an artist does this, I commend them, for it is in self reflection that people can truly learn about their own complexity.
So I commend Rene Magritte for bringing into existence a painting that on the surface and at a glance seems simplistic, but with further observation meaning arises and sends me to a place of reflection and visual satisfaction.
OH! and if you were curious, here is what the artist looks like, in his 1936 self portrait
Magritte Rene' 1898 -
1967
And that's that!
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