Natural Encounters - 1945

This work can be likened to a strange encounter. Are the two odd creatures in the centre, statues or living things? The windows are also odd in the sense that the left one is seen from the right and the right one from the left. The only reference to an outside world is the sea and the sky which can be seen from the windows.

The False Mirror - 1928

The inspiration for this work came from a photograph of an eye that the artist Man Ray had constructed as a sculpture. Margritte was fasinated by it and Ray gave him the photograph from which this painting was then derived. The interesting thing about the work is that the eye is a reflection. As such it is passive, and not actually looking at the viewer.

The Art of Living - 1967

Painted in the year he died, this work depicts the everyday 'ready made citizen'. It is this unremarkable citizen with his ready made suit and ready made values that Margritte makes fun of. The unremarkable being something very remarkable due to its being unremarkable.

The Castle in the Pyrenees - 1959

In his later periods, Margritte became fascinated with rocks and their properties. In this painting, Margritte defies gravity by elevating a castle and the rock upon which it is built into the air. The title of the work is a play on the french expression 'Chateaux en Espagne' meaning 'Castles in the Air'.