Brilliant and unpredictable, extravagant and measured, a homebody, opinionated,at times irascible, Rene Magritte was hardly a simple man. A complex and tortured individual, he affected a mild manner that could swerve just as easily toward virulence as it could to frank laughter and practical jokes. Beneath the seeming conformity of his drab life, Magritte, who walked his mind the way he walked his dog, was a tireless inventor, a distinguished theoretician (the word rhetoric appears frequently in his writings), an indefatigable questioner, a logician of the imaginary,a philosophical magician, an agitator of ideas and toppler of certainties, a quiet saboteur, a man of implacable and ruthless lucidity, today considered "the grand master of mystery." But perhaps more than anything, he was a "demolition expert,"in the words of Louis Scutenaire, his closest friend and the one who best perceived the intrinsically Surrealist nature of his work.

Magritte is also the figure who, under cover of anonymity, posed for the photograph God, the Eighth Day (1937), taken in the garden of his house on Rue Esseghem in the Brussels suburb of Jette. This remarkable photo was apparently used that same year as a preparatory model for the painting The Healer (1936).There are no fewer than four painted versions of it, including two gouaches dated 1937 with the same title, one of which was purchased by the lawyer and collector Henry Torczyner in 1947. The Healer also figures in the fresco The Enchanted Realm (1953), created for the public casino in Knokke. A version from 1947,executed from studies in ballpoint pen, also bears the title The Liberator. The following year, Jacques Wergifosse said of it: "The liberator lives in a land where logic does not drive one mad."

PROLOGUE: Watch the (Real) Birdie

EDUCATING THE PAINTER (1898-1930)

Family Photos: The Tender Secrets of Childhood

My, How You've Changed, Rene!

Georgette and Rene: A Love Story in Pictures

Oh, My Friends, Let Us Laugh Hearty and Drink Deep

The Double Figure, or the Challenge to Resemblance

The Conquest of Paris, or the Outskirts of Success

Self-Portrait of Creation: Attempting the impossible

2. CREATING THE PHOTOGRAPHER (1930-1954l

The Return to Brussels, Georgette's Charm

Photography Is the Art of Disobedience: Let's Use It for All It's Worth

Vacations from Life, Vacancies of Sight

The Genius of Discoveries, the Gaiety of Rediscoveries

Painting Put to the Test of Fixed Images

3. INCARNATING THE CHARACTER 11955-1967)

Commissioned Portraits, or the Irony of Fame

Self-Portrait, or the Artist's Face Captured in Photographs

"We're Not Nonexistent Enough"

May I Take Your Portrait, Dear Rene Magritte?

EPILOGUE: Please--You Look Like You've Just Come from a Funera

Notes

By the Same Author

Acknowledgements