Invisible World

Like many of his famous works, the Invisible World (1954) was done on oil on canvas—one of the artist’s favourite media.

The artwork represents a seascape complete with a sky, clouds, and water, and by all means seems realistic.

The room from which it is seen has a balustrade and two open glass doors, and may also have been realistic but for an oval boulder sitting squarely, and above all strangely, on the wooden floor.

Born in 1898 in Lessines town in Belgium, Rene Magritte has been acclaimed as a legend in the making of modern art.

Rene Magritte is recognised as one of the leading surrealist of his time.

Even after his death in 1967, few artists using the surrealism technique have matched his prowess. While he did not, in any way, try to move from the path of realism, he went further than is expected.

In short, he had the uncanny ability to make the most familiar human figures and objects unfamiliar.

In Invisible World, he had put his artistic talent into great use in creating the realistic and familiar seascape and room from which it is viewed but the oval boulder, large and conspicuous, tilts everything off-balance, opening a new world.

In addition, the light casting in its shadow is not from the open doors but from an unseen source which may as well be a door through which the boulder was passed.

It is easy to pick out a Magritte painting from a collection done by hundreds of artists. There is no mistaking the recurring theme of the covered face which brings out the surrealism in most cases.

For instance, The Lovers shows a couple kissing under two cloths. In Son of Man, the human figure and the apple are by all means realistic but the apple covers the man’s face. Like the two paintings, the boulder in the Invisible World is designed to help uncover the hidden world of the unconscious.

Rene Magritte lived in a world of his own and tried to unveil it for others the best way he could—through surrealistic painting.

Some of his critics argue that the predominant ‘covered face’ theme was a result of witnessing the retrieval of his mother’s body from the river when she drowned herself when he was only 14—her face was covered. However, only an artistic genius could bring such mystery into a familiar seascape as in the Invisible World.