René Magritte - Collective Invention

Collective Invention, created in 1934, is one of the typical works in which Magritte provokes a provocation by inverting a traditional image: the mermaid, a symbol of seduction in the collective imagination, is represented here, through the inversion of components, as a disturbing creature with the head and body of a fish and the legs of a woman. The result is a disturbing, cold and repulsive portrayal. ©c.H./ADAGP, Paris 2023