To be a surrealist means barring from your mind all remembrance of what you have seen, and being always on the lookout for what has never been.

Meaning of the quote

To be a surrealist artist means to forget everything you've seen before and always look for new, strange, and unusual things that you've never seen or experienced. Surrealists try to create art that is surprising and imaginative, not based on real life. They want to show you a world that doesn't follow the normal rules of reality.

About Rene Magritte

Rene Francois Ghislain Magrittewas a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and boundaries of reality and representation. His imagery has influenced pop art, minimalist art, and conceptual art.

More about the author

More quotes from Rene Magritte

Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.

Rene Magritte

Belgian painter and sculptor (1898-1967)

Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.

Rene Magritte

Belgian painter and sculptor (1898-1967)

Only thought can resemble. It resembles by being what it sees, hears, or knows; it becomes what the world offers it.

Rene Magritte

Belgian painter and sculptor (1898-1967)

The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown, since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.

Rene Magritte

Belgian painter and sculptor (1898-1967)

The present reeks of mediocrity and the atom bomb.

Rene Magritte

Belgian painter and sculptor (1898-1967)

We must not fear daylight just because it almost always illuminates a miserable world.

Rene Magritte

Belgian painter and sculptor (1898-1967)

Life obliges me to do something, so I paint.

Rene Magritte

Belgian painter and sculptor (1898-1967)

To be a surrealist means barring from your mind all remembrance of what you have seen, and being always on the lookout for what has never been.

Rene Magritte

Belgian painter and sculptor (1898-1967)

If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream.

Rene Magritte

Belgian painter and sculptor (1898-1967)

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.

Rene Magritte

Belgian painter and sculptor (1898-1967)