The collective invention depicts a fish merged with a woman's legs stranded on the beach. This is mockery of the traditional mermaid. Magritte's painting strips away the beauty and mystery surrounding the mermaid. He removed the beauty by using the opposites.
Also the fish is stranded thus removing all the elegance of the mermaid, a fish out of water. This is a stark opposite to mermaids or sirens who in myths would lure men into the sea with their beauty.
René Magritte was one of the most famous surrealist painters of all time. His ability to challenge perception inspired many artists to come, such as Andy Warhol, Jan Verdoodt and Jasper Johns. Furthermore, his idiosyncratic vision of Surrealism has won over the hearts and minds of millions.
He worked across various media including painting, printmaking, sculpting, photography, and film. His depiction of normal, everyday objects rearranged in an unusual way allowed his viewers to take a deeper look at what was in front of them and realize what the image truly represented.
One of his most well-known pieces, The Treachery of Images exemplifies his ability to give new meanings to objects. It is an image of a pipe, and beneath it, a message that reads, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”).
This ability to make the mundane strange and the known unknown has solidified Magritte’s talents in the art world. Eventually, it has profoundly affected the Conceptualist and Pop Art movements, to this very day.
