“Perhaps that is part of Magritte’s point. We exist, and then we don’t. The world will be there when we are gone. The dull factuality of physical things does not need human perception to make it persist. Thinking about this through Magritte’s eyes becomes terrifying: that when you leave your home and lock the door all the objects in it still exist, unconscious as they are, without any need to be known, to be seen, by a conscious human.

That’s one eerie way of looking at it, but there is no easy way to “decode” a Magritte painting. His art placidly and calmly asks terrifying questions about the solid things we take for granted.

You know nothing, smiles the bowler-hatted magician, as he pulls away the rug from under your feet to reveal there’s no floor, either. And that’s not even a pipe you’re holding in your hand.

"This is not an article: why René Magritte is a timeless genius”