Favorite Piece of Art

Art is a term that describes a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities, but here refers to the visual arts, which cover the creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media.

The Son of Man is my favorite piece of art. The Son of Man is a Belgian surrealist painting. It was painted in 1964 by Rene Magritte. The painting was originally intended to be a self-portrait. The painting conveys a man in an overcoat wearing a bowler hat and standing in front of a short wall. Behind this short wall are a cloudy sky and the sea. You cannot see the face of the man, since it is largely obscured by a floating green apple. However, you can see the eyes of the man as they are peeking over the edge of the apple. If you are keen enough when looking at the painting, you will notice that the left arm seems to be bending backwards at the elbow. Magritte said that “the painting just shows us about humanity. He says that everything we see hides some other thing yet we still want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is always some sort of interest in what is hidden and what the visible does not show us.

This brings about some sort of conflict between the visible that is present and the visible that is hidden.” I believe this painting shows a loss of identity. This is the reason I chose this as my favorite piece of art, because I can relate to it. There came a time in my life where I was struggling with my own identity. In today’s world it is very significant to identify oneself with at least one thing (ones ethnicity, nationality, race, religion, or a particular belief). Many people still grapple with the notion of identity in many countries, regions, and various ways in order to fit or adapt into any environment (social, economic, cultural, political, etc). One’s identity determines ones position or situation in society wherever one lives. However, finding the right type of identity can be challenging for many people sometimes because of the difficulties they face in the process of choosing their identities.