The Son of Man《人之子》

爱艺

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》当作自画像。画中，一个男人身穿大衣，头戴圆顶硬礼帽，站在一堵矮墙前，墙外是大海和多云的天空。男人的脸大部分被一个悬浮的青苹果遮住了。然而，可以看到，这个男人的眼睛正从苹果的边缘向外张望。另一个微妙之处是，男人的左胳膊肘似乎弯向后方。

关于这幅画，马格利特曾这样解释：

至少它遮掩了部分脸。没错，你能看到苹果的脸，这张脸遮掩了有形却被隐藏的人脸。这是经常发生的事。我们看到的每样东西都遮掩了另一样，我们总想搞清自己看到的东西背后隐藏了什么。人们对隐藏的东西、对有形之物没有示人的部分总是很感兴趣。这种兴趣可能表现为一种非常强烈的情绪，或可说表现为有形物的隐藏部分与外露部分之间的一种冲突。

1946年年初，马格利特作画时既表现出现实主义风格，又表现出印象派风格。他的一些作品，比如《人之子》，已经走向更极端的色彩表达。这种极端的风格更接近梵高的一些画作——1947年年末，他受邀于1948年5月在巴黎福宝画廊举办首次个人画展，这种极端风格由此开始加速发展。今天，《人之子》和萨尔瓦多·达利的《记忆的永恒》一起，成为超现实主义运动最具标志性的作品。

1 文森特·梵高（1853—1890），荷兰后印象派画家。  2 萨尔瓦多·达利（1904—1989），西班牙超现实主义画家。