Most portraits of Rene Magritte were completed in 1930. His portraits needed to be made a quotation mark, because most works had no portraits and were replaced by other scenery such as seascape, still life. The audience was terrified for this. His real portraits, especially the close-up portraits, never painted face. Here the painting Man In A Bowler Hat was a good example.
Man In A Bowler Hat
Man In A Bowler Hat was made in 1964, which was actually a self-portrait. This painting measures 63.5 X 48 cm which is now owned by a private person in New York (Simone Witherspoon Swan). The gentleman in a bowler hat wearing a black coat was Magritte himself. He used a dove accidentally flying through his face to cover his face. By his own account, he was quite different from most surrealist painters in Paris and despised using colors for portraits. He just wanted to tell the audience that the portrait was just an ordinary middle-class citizen. Since he never drew others, painting himself was actually in violation of the cases. Sometimes, turning one’s face away was using accidental things to block. This was another feature of his surrealist portraits.
Man In A Bowler Hat expressed Magritte’s anonymous concern and ideas about the integration. He actually associated the man in a bowler hat and ordinary individuals “ordinary people” together. Anonymous ideas were really an important concern of Brussels surrealists and Magritte. He regarded the bowler hat and grey suit as the “self image”. He hoped to combine into us and also tried to establish the understanding of the world.
