The Blank Signature _{(Rene Magritte, Surrealism)}

Surrealism aimed to transcend realist depiction of scenes available to ordinary perception. Under the influence of the new discipline of psychoanalysis, surrealists made use of such techniques as dream analysis to uncover the unconscious workings of the mind and the symbols that the unconscious works with. Not much of Magritte's oeuvre consists of literally inconsistent images, but at least one famous image does, The Blank Signature.

This painting utilises a technique like that of the Schuster fork, and illustrates how the mind constructs the impossibility. The mind puts together the separate elements into a "coherent" whole of these parts. The horse is thus bisected by a patch of background grass. Also, one of the tree trunks is in front of the horse but its base is behind the horse. It certainly seems that these elements are inconsistent with our conception of a rider in a forest. For example, it qualifies as an occlusion illusion, since reversal of occlusions is sufficient to produce a consistent image.

Magritte's Other Works