A thing which is present can be invisible, hidden by what it shows
Interpretation
Visibility can be deceiving; what we see may hide deeper truths.
This quote by Rene Magritte reflects the paradox of perception in art and reality. It suggests that things may appear prominent to our senses yet still cloak essential aspects beneath their surface, urging us to look beyond mere appearances to uncover hidden meanings and truths.
In practice
In a discussion about the interpretation of modern art.
I detest my past, and anyone else's. I detest resignation, patience, professional heroism and obligatory beautiful feelings. I also detest the decorative arts, folklore, advertising, voices making announcements, aerodynamism, boy scouts, the smell of moth balls, events of the moment, and drunken people.
Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.
Everything that is visible hides something that is invisible.
The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture βThis is a pipeβ, I'd have been lying!
Nothing is confused except the mind.
We must not fear daylight just because it almost always illuminates a miserable world.
In my view, the only way to see a film remains the way the filmmaker intended: inside a large movie theater with great sound and pristine picture.
There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.
Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.
In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it.
Language leads a double life - and so does the novelist. You chat with family and friends, you attend to your correspondence, you consult menus and shopping lists, you observe road signs, and so on. Then you enter your study, where language exists in quite another form - as the stuff of patterned artifice.
For me, architecture is the means, not the end. It's a means of making different life forms possible.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.