The Son of Man
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The Son of Man (French: Le fils de l'homme) is a 1964 painting by the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte.
Magritte painted it as a self-portrait. The painting consists of a man in a suit and a bowler hat standing in front of a small wall, beyond which is the sea and a cloudy sky. The man's face is largely obscured by a hovering green apple.
The Son of Man should not be confused with The Great War on Facades (La Grande Guerre Facades), another Magritte painting featuring similar imagery. Both feature a person standing in front of a wall overlooking the sea. The Great War on Facades, however, features a woman holding an umbrella, her face covered by a flower. The painting should also not be confused with Man in the Bowler Hat, a similar painting where the man's face is obscured by a bird rather than an apple.
About the painting Magritte said,
- Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see, but it is impossible. Humans hide their secrets too well....
The Son of Man is privately owned.
The painting was used in the 1999 film The Thomas Crown Affair and in the 2004 short film Ryan. According to the Beatles Anthology, the apple in the Apple Records logo was designed to resemble the one in this Magritte painting.
