Baronhawk's Nest

My friend, Sheena asked me to share my favourite painting after I commented on her post about her favourite painting. I just thought I'd reciprocate.

I am not an art connoisseur per say, though I do have a modicum of appreciation for it. My fancy for art is seasonal and passing. Mostly I prefer landscapes and cityscapes.

However if there is a painting that would come to mind readily as a favourite, it would be René Magritte's 'Son of Man', featured prominently in the 1999 movie The Thomas Crowne Affair. A remake of the 1968 film of the same name.

Painted in 1964 by the Belgian Surrealist painter, it is a self portrait of himself standing in front of a wall by the seaside. A green apple incongruously hiding his face.

I can try to explain what attracted me to this piece, but perhaps this is a tale best told by the words of its creator himself. As quoted by Wikipedia from a radio interview in 1965, René Magritte has this to say about 'The Son of Man':

At least it hides the face partly. Well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It's something that happens constantly. 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.

Enough said, I am always fascinated with what is hidden... the mystery that surrounds us, just out of the edge of the visible and beyond the cusps of the known. This painting is the epitome of my personal obsession with the mystery and the dream.