The Son of Man《人之子》

愛(ài)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(dāng)作自畫(huà)像。畫(huà)中，一個(gè)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(gè)懸浮的青蘋(píng)果遮住了。然而，可以看到，這個(gè)男人的眼睛正從蘋(píng)果的邊緣向外張望。另一個(gè)微妙之處是，男人的左胳膊肘似乎彎向后方。

關(guān)于這幅畫(huà)，馬格利特曾這樣解釋?zhuān)?/p>

至少它遮掩了部分臉。沒(méi)錯(cuò)，你能看到蘋(píng)果的臉，這張臉遮掩了有形卻被隱藏的人臉。這是經(jīng)常發(fā)生的事。我們看到的每樣?xùn)|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(duì)隱藏的東西、對(duì)有形之物沒(méi)有示人的部分總是很感興趣。這種興趣可能表現(xiàn)為一種非常強(qiáng)烈的情緒，或可說(shuō)表現(xiàn)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(huà)時(shí)既表現(xiàn)出現(xiàn)實(shí)主義風(fēng)格，又表現(xiàn)出印象派風(fēng)格。他的一些作品，比如《人之子》，已經(jīng)走向更極端的色彩表達(dá)。這種極端的風(fēng)格更接近梵高的一些畫(huà)作——1947年年末，他受邀于1948年5月在巴黎福寶畫(huà)廊舉辦首次個(gè)人畫(huà)展，這種極端風(fēng)格由此開(kāi)始加速發(fā)展。今天，《人之子》和薩爾瓦多·達(dá)利的《記憶的永恒》一起，成為超現(xiàn)實(shí)主義運(yùn)動(dòng)最具標(biāo)志性的作品。

1 文森特·梵高（1853—1890），荷蘭后印象派畫(huà)家。? 2 薩爾瓦多·達(dá)利（1904—1989），西班牙超現(xiàn)實(shí)主義畫(huà)家。