The Heartstrings

The Heartstrings, a stunningly beautiful and mesmerizing image, was painted by Rene Magritte in 1960, using oils on canvas.

He gave it to his wife Georgette as a present but the couple were persuaded to sell the painting to their friend and dealer, Renee Lachowsky, a few years later.

It remained in a private art collection in Belgium until recently, when it was expected to fetch around 17.5 million dollars at auction.

The Heartstrings or "la corde sensible" features an enormous crystal, champagne glass which dominates a natural landscape. The glass is empty apart from at the top, where a huge, white cloud rests in the rim of the glass.

The glass and cloud dominate the scene and are set against a clear, blue sky. The cloud and the glass appear huge in comparison to the green river plain and the mountain ranges in the background of the picture.

The painting appears almost simplistic at first glance but in true Magritte style, the visual conundrum teases the viewer, who tries to understand the meaning behind such a surreal image. Magritte certainly played with his ideas in this painting.

He forces the viewer to consider the complexities around the weightlessness of the opaque cloud which has come to rest in the transparent, yet solid, glass vessel.

The viewer may wonder whether the glass is about to be filled with water from the cloud or did the contents of the glass simply evaporate? The scale of the painting is ambiguous too. Are the glass and cloud supersized or are the river and mountains painted in miniature?

The Heartstrings was one of Magritte's largest pieces, at nearly 4 feet by 5 feet in size. The simplicity of the piece adds to the complexity overall. While Magritte painted many images which included clouds in the compostition, he did not paint any further pairings of a cloud with a glass.

The Heartstrings is a wonderful, yet enigmatic Magritte piece that will perplex and entertain viewers for years to come.