Rene Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist, well-known for a number of witty and amusing images. Rene Magritte described his paintings by saying, My painting is visible images which conceal nothing they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, "What does that mean?". It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.

About Rene Magritte: the Belgian Artist, Rene Magritte was born in Lessines, in the province of Hainaut, in 1898. He began lessons in drawing in 1910. In 1912, his mother committed suicide by drowning herself in the River Sambre. Rene Magritte was present when her body was retrieved from the water. The image of his mother floating, her dress obscuring her face, may have influenced a 1927-1928 series of paintings of people with cloth obscuring their faces, including Les Amants, but he disliked this explanation. Contemporary artists have been greatly influenced by Rene Magritte's stimulating examination of the fickleness of images. Some artists that were influenced by Rene Magritte Paintings include John Baldessari, Sherrie Levine, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, and Martin Kippenberger. Some of the artists' works integrate direct references and others offer contemporary viewpoints on his abstract fixations.