Golconda

Golconda (in French, Golconde) is an oil painting on canvas by Belgian surrealist René Magritte, painted in 1953. It is currently housed at the Menil collection in Houston, Texas. The piece depicts a scene of identical men dressed in dark overcoat and bowler hat, who seem to be falling like rain or floating like helium-balloons (though there is no actual indication of motion), against a backdrop of buildings and blue sky. It is humorous, but with an obvious criticism of the conventional effacing of individuality. Magritte himself lived in a similar suburban environment, and dressed in a similar fashion. The bowler hat was a common feature of much of his work, and appears in paintings like The Son of Man. Charly Herscovici, who was bequeathed copyright on the artist's works, commented on Golconda: As was often the case with Magritte's works, the title Golconde was found by his poet friend Louis Scutenaire. Golconda is a ruined city in southeast India, which from the mid­fourteenth... full article at wikipedia