The Son of Man《人之子》

愛藝

Magritte painted The Son of Man as a self-portrait. The painting consists of a man in an overcoat and a bowler hat standing in front of a short wall， beyond which is the sea and a cloudy sky. The man’s face is largely obscured by a hovering green apple. However， the man’s eyes can be seen peeking over the edge of the apple. Another subtle feature is that the man’s left arm appears to bend backward at the elbow.

About the painting， Magritte said：

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.

At the start of 1946， Margritte was painting in both his realist style and his impressionist style. Some of his works， like The Son of Man， were already headed toward more extreme colors. This extreme style， closer to some of Vincent van Gogh1’s paintings， would accelerate in late 1947 when he was invited to hold his first solo exhibition in Paris at the Galerie du Faubourg in May 1948. Today， along with Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali2， The Son of Man has become the most iconic image of Surrealism Movement.

馬格利特把《人之子》當作自畫像。畫中，一個男人身穿大衣，頭戴圓頂硬禮帽，站在一堵矮墻前，墻外是大海和多云的天空。男人的臉大部分被一個懸浮的青蘋果遮住了。然而，可以看到，這個男人的眼睛正從蘋果的邊緣向外張望。另一個微妙之處是，男人的左胳膊肘似乎彎向后方。

關于這幅畫，馬格利特曾這樣解釋：

至少它遮掩了部分臉。沒錯，你能看到蘋果的臉，這張臉遮掩了有形卻被隱藏的人臉。這是經常發生的事。我們看到的每樣東西都遮掩了另一樣，我們總想搞清自己看到的東西背后隱藏了什么。人們對隱藏的東西、對有形之物沒有示人的部分總是很感興趣。這種興趣可能表現為一種非常強烈的情緒，或可說表現為有形物的隱藏部分與外露部分之間的一種沖突。

1946年年初，馬格利特作畫時既表現出現實主義風格，又表現出印象派風格。他的一些作品，比如《人之子》，已經走向更極端的色彩表達。這種極端的風格更接近梵高的一些畫作——1947年年末，他受邀于1948年5月在巴黎福寶畫廊舉辦首次個人畫展，這種極端風格由此開始加速發展。今天，《人之子》和薩爾瓦多·達利的《記憶的永恒》一起，成為超現實主義運動最具標志性的作品。

1 文森特·梵高（1853—1890），荷蘭后印象派畫家。? 2 薩爾瓦多·達利（1904—1989），西班牙超現實主義畫家。