The artwork titled “The Voice of Blood” by René Magritte, created in 1959 in Brussels, Belgium, exemplifies the Surrealist art movement. Executed in lithography on paper, this symbolic painting measures 66 x 49.2 cm and currently resides in the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MUMOK) in Vienna, Austria.
In this artwork, a large, robust tree dominates the foreground against an ambiguous, twilight landscape. The tree’s lush foliage and shadowy trunk convey a sense of mystery. Unconventionally, the trunk houses various open compartments or doors, one revealing the interior of a room. This room, with visible walls and windows, disrupts the natural form, suggesting surreal interplays between interiority and exteriority, nature and human constructs. The open spaces and the tree’s hollowed segments invoke a sense of curiosity and invite an exploration of the hidden realities that lie beneath the surface of the visible world, a characteristic motif in Magritte’s oeuvre.
