Rene Magritte was a surrealist painter and he painted a few portraits but mostly other subjects. He painted around the middle of the1900's and this portrait was painted sometime around then. The portraits that he painted were few, but each one was great. I think the greatest portrait that he painted is the Son of Man. This is a great portrait because it captures your imagination and makes you want to see what is behind the apple and what the mans face looks like. Magritte said after he painted it, "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…" Because of the title, one thinks it may be the apple that was handed to Adam by Eve that the man is being blinded by. Adam can’t see beyond the delicious apple, and we can’t see him." The Son of Man is unique because of the characteristics of the painting. Over head however there are dark storm clouds and yet there seems to be sunlight on the bricks behind him. The shading and everything is perfect because the suit and hat faraway could be mistaken for a real suit and hat. The only thing that contradicts that is the apple floating in midair in front of his unknown face. I think the colors were well chosen the tie especially because it has a good contrast with the rest of the man.

The pictures of Rene Magritte are all painted with a surreal theme and with many aspects of the more modern art. In some of the paintings he paints things that don’t quite make any sense. For example my painting the Son of Man is a picture of a man with an apple on the middle of his face, cutting off much of his features. This is why some of them are interesting. The Son of Man is better than the picture of the Mona Lisa because the Mona Lisa is sort of a dull dreary picture. It doesn’t have a very bright or cheery feeling about it. Overall the colors of the Son of Man are better chosen and suit the theme and person that is in it. The colors in the Mona Lisa suit the theme but don't make it look colorful. The background of the Mona Lisa is a bunch of trees giving a big shadow over the lands and making them look harsh and uncolored. But with all of this how is the Mona Lisa smiling when she has a background that is so dark? On the other hand Rene Magritte's Son of Man is very bright and is not as dreary as the Mona Lisa. The focal point on both is the person that was painted, more specifically the apple in the Son of Man and face of the Mona Lisa.