The issue of tragedy Essay Example for Free

The issue of tragedy Essay The term, tragedy, by dictionary definition, can be defined as A story with a sad or unhappy ending. (Arthur Miller, Tragedy and the Common Man). Although there is some truth to this, the true definition of tragedy goes much deeper. The notion of tragedy has been a part of English literature since the beginning of the Classical times. Tragedy is available in almost all literary forms, such as, novels, play wrights, film, etc. Shakespeare, for example, has written numerous world renowned tragedies since the turn of the seventeenth century. Four centuries later, with all the changes to the world of literature, tragedy continues to prevail, as a popular form of literature. Through comparing and contrasting William Shakespeares, Hamlet, with Arthur Millers, Death of a Salesman, it is clear that tragedy continues to have many of the same features as it did so long ago and it continues to appeal to audiences today. This is demonstrated through the tragic hero, the heros tragic flaw, and the catharsis. With these three elements included, a more exact definition of tragedy is defined by Aristotle as, the imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude, in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the playthrough pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions. (Aristotle, The Poetics). Although each and every tragedy is slightly different or even quite dissimilar, every true tragedy includes the presence of a tragic hero. The tragic hero can be defined as man as both beautiful and terrible (Class notes, Tragedy and The Tragic Hero). It is most often the heros unjustified life which turns his story into a tragedy. The tragic hero has been a critical role since the beginning of tragedies and it continues to be today. However, views of how the hero should rank in society, have changed over time. According to Aristotle, it is thought that the heros position in society is to be much above the average man. Aristotle defines the hero to be a character of noble stature and has greatness. (Aristotle, Aristotles Idea of Tragedy). This can be seen in Shakespearean time, through such plays as, Hamlet. Hamlets noble stature comes from his position as a prince; he is the son of  the late king and nephew to the new king. Hamlets strong loyalty and dedication to his family has been interpreted as his greatness by many critics. This can be seen as Hamlet learns the truth about his fathers death, and his father asks him to seek revenge on his uncle, the new king, Haste me to knowt, that I, with wings as swift As meditation or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge. (Shakespeare, Hamlet, III, v, 23-24). Hamlet reveals that he will do whatever it takes to seek revenge upon his uncle and is not worried about the consequences. With this quote, It becomes obvious that Hamlet is in fact the tragic hero of the play. Although it is partly the consistency of tragic heroism that attracts viewers to tragedy today, the status of the tragic hero has been viewed differently by great philosophers today, than it was hundreds of years ago. Arthur Miller, for example, believes that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were. (Arthur Miller, Tragedy and the Common Man). The tragic hero, Willy Loman, in Arthur Millers, Death of a Salesman , unquestionably conforms to this description. Willy Loman is a common man, which is evident through his family life, his career as a salesman, and his position in society. Viewers can easily identify with him, which further classifies him as a tragic hero. Although Willy is a common man, he still has some greatness. His greatness lies in his struggle to claim some shred of dignity. He fights back against a system that is bigger than he is, that destroys little men like him. He demonstrates an ability for self sacrifice. (Class notes, Death of a Salesman- Is it a Tragedy). This is demonstrated through Willys discussion with Howard about getting further ahead in his business, You cant eat the orange and throw  the peel away-a man is not a piece of fruit. (Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman, pg. 84). Willy is attempting to justify his position in society and fight back against the system, which he inevitably fails miserably at doing. By comparing Shakespeares Hamlet with Willy Loman in Arthur Millers, Death of a Salesman, it is evident that the tragic hero is a key element to every tragedy. Although their positions in society are slightly different they  both posses qualities of greatness and will eventually be doomed by these qualities. A tragedy would not be a true tragedy without the presence of the tragic hero, which is why audiences are still attracted to tragedies after hundreds of years. Although the tragic hero is acclaimed to be deemed with the qualities of greatness, the tragic hero is certainly not perfect. In fact, this strong imperfection is know as the heros tragic flaw. The heros tragic flaw is what distinguishes him from any other character. This can be seen in both Death of a Salesman and Hamlet. It may be exactly this unique tragic flaw which continually attracts audiences to tragedies today. The heros tragic flaw is unique to each character and it is what makes him/her a true tragic hero. In Shakespeares, Hamlet, Hamlets tragic flaw comes from his boundless loyalty to his family. It is because he strives to follow his fathers orders to the absolute fullest that he eventually causes his own demise. Hamlet is overly passionate, indecisive, excessively intellectual, and overly infantile. He has never grown up. Hamlet suffers from oedipus complex and cannot accept the reality that he has a mother with sexual needs. It is his tragic flaw which make Hamlet bound for destruction. This becomes evident to the audience when Hamlet is in his mothers room and hears a scream, without looking he assumes it is the voice of Claudius, How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead. [Makes a pass through the arras, Polonius falls and dies]. (Hamlet, III, iv, 72) This is Hamlets character flaw, he doesnt think before he acts, he simply wants to follow his fathers commands to the fullest and so he acts with excessive passion. The tragic hero always has the potential to excel in his greatness but he/she inevitably succumbs to his/her weaknesses/tragic flaw. (Class notes, Tragedy and the Tragic Hero). The tragic hero, Hamlet, is very different from Death of a Salesmans tragic hero, Willy Loman, yet the tradition of the tragic flaw continues. Willy Lomans tragic flaw differs dramatically from Hamlet, yet audiences are still attracted to the tragic flaw today as much as they were in Shakespearean time. In Arthur Millers, Death of a Salesman, Willy Lomans tragic flaw comes from the unnecessary, immense importance he puts upon success, class, and respect through the eyes of society. Willy becomes  obsessed with obtaining a high position in society that it becomes his only reason for living. It is his tragic flaw which eventually leads him to his own death. As Arthur Miller comments, the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life if need be, to secure one thing- his sense of personal dignity. (Arthur Miller, Tragedy and The Common Man). This describes Willy Loman exactly. The feeling of pity is evoked in viewers because Willys tragic flaw is so easy to identify with. Willys flaw has good intentions, for he wants Biff to follow in his footsteps and benefit from his values, but Willys true flaw is his blindness to see that his obsession with these values is causing his own demise. This is demonstrated when Willy gives his two sons advice about getting ahead in the world the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates a personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want. (Miller, Death of a Salesman, Pg 33) Obtaining a high position in society and being respected in the business world are what Willy feels are the most important aspects of life. As Bradley writes, [The tragic hero] need not be good, but should have so much of greatness that in his error and fall we are vividly conscious of the possibilities of human nature. (Class notes, Tragedy and The Tragic Hero). The feeling evoked is that if waste. Both Hamlet and Willy had great possibilities in life but the blindness of their tragic fall caused them to waste their chances and waste their life. This expected tragic feeling has remained constant over time and is what continues to appeal to audiences time and time again. Tragedies are literary works which are continually filled with suffering, destruction, and most often death. However, through this suffering, the tragic concept is that man endures and gains through suffering. (Class notes, Tragedy and the Tragic Hero) The destruction in each tragedy is never meaningless, it has significant relevance. Although, emotions are aroused, tragedy does not leave viewers feeling depressed. The goal of a tragedy is to leave viewers in a state of catharsis. The word catharsis implies that tragedy purges, removes, or unclogs negative emotions, such as pity and fear that build up within the human spirit. (Some thoughts About Tragedy, both  literary and mundane) Tragedy cleanses, purifies, and thus rids viewers of negative emotions, such as, anger, pity, and fear, and turns them into something good. Viewers endure the tragedy but then gain through suffering by purifying their unhealthy emotions into something healthy. Catharsism is evident in both Hamlet and Death of a Salesman and it continues to attract viewers to tragedies today, as it did hundreds of years ago. At the end of Hamlet, viewers are left with a very negative scene of blood, and many meaningless deaths. As depressing as it may seem, it is not meant to leave the audience feeling depressed. The audience is left with a feeling of cleansing, ridding any feelings of revenge. Viewers accept a feeling of a new beginning, due to the prior line of madness being destructed. Hamlet displays a portion of this optimism just before his death, Give me the cup. Let go. By heaven, Ill havet. O God, Horatio, what a wounded name, Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me! If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain To tell my story (Hamlet, v, ii, 120). Although Hamlet is dying, he asks for his story to be told so others can benefit from the story of his life. It turns a depressing notion into something optimistic. Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman follows this same trait. Without personally reading or viewing, Death of a Salesman, one might think that Willy Loman taking his own life is a very depressing notion. However, like Hamlet, Death of a Salesman leaves the audience with the feeling of a catharsis when Willys life tragically ends. Audiences can easily relate to Willy Loman in his time of despair, as he fails again and again to obtain recognition from society. It is his entire reason for living until he eventually gives up and lays down his life in order for Biff to benefit. The tragedy allows the audience to purge themselves of feelings of pity and fear due to the strong connection with Willys character. Happy realizes what Willy has done for Biff and as he stands at his fathers funeral, Happy defends Willy by saying Im gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. Its the only dream you can have-to come out number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where Im gonna win it for him. (Miller, Death of a  Salesman, Pg. 138-139). The audience realizes that Willy has almost turned his own defeat into a triumph, which replaces any negative emotions, with positive ones. There is no doubt that in every tragedy, there is endless suffering and destruction, however it is ones recognition with these feelings which allows the audience to cleanse themselves of these emotions and gain through the suffering. These qualities have been a large component of tragedy since tragedy began and continue to attract and appeal to audiences today. Tragedies are often extremely varied and each one is slightly different. The content of tragedies can be extremely diverse and often have nothing in common with any other tragedy. However, there are a few components which must be present in every true tragedy. Three important aspects which are contained in every true tragedy is the tragic hero, the heros tragic flaw, and the catharsis. This becomes evident through comparing and contrasting William Shakespeares, Hamlet, with Arthur Millers, Death of a Salesman. It is these features which allow tragedy to appeal to audiences today, just as much as they did hundreds of years ago. Tragedies have been popular for centuries and they will continue to be popular for centuries to come.

Free Essay: A Closer Reading of Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown :: Young Goodman Brown YGB

A Closer Reading of Young Goodman Brown Last year, in my final year of high school, we were assigned to read Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown."Â   At the time, I didn't read the story too closely and I missed much of the symbolism. However, upon reading it this semester, I now appreciate it much more because it brings the reader through a roller coaster of emotions and forces him to think introspectively. When it starts off, I felt suspense; his wife's urging him not to go set off emergency flashers in my mind. I could feel in my bones that something bad was going to happen. Once he had begun his "journey," the setting of that journey was once again pretty creepy. "He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind" (376). I was fearful for Young Goodman Brown, and I was hoping that he would get to return to his wife, aptly named Faith. The fact that her name was Faith seemed symbolic to me. I made a mental note to analyze after I had finished reading, why Hawthorne had named her Faith. The surreal characteristics of the path and the forest he was in, only added to the suspense when he met his companion. Based on the description of this traveler, I came to the assumption that this was Young Goodman Brown in the future. I'm not really sure if that assumption is valid or not, but that was my initial response. I think it's interesting that my initial response is a supernatural one: a Back to the Future kind of response, where a person meets himself or herself in the future. This story gave me a creepy feeling, like a good horror story. The suspense of not knowing what was going to happen next, while all the while expecting something dramatic, quickened my heartbeat. Young Goodman Brown then meets his catechism teacher, which is symbolic of a person he assumed was very pious and automatically going to go to Heaven. It seemed to me that this story is all about hypocrisy, and how even the most pious-seeming people still have skeletons in their closet. This was later evidenced again when he finally got to the "altar" in the middle of the forest and he sees the spectacle. Free Essay: A Closer Reading of Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown :: Young Goodman Brown YGB A Closer Reading of Young Goodman Brown Last year, in my final year of high school, we were assigned to read Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown."Â   At the time, I didn't read the story too closely and I missed much of the symbolism. However, upon reading it this semester, I now appreciate it much more because it brings the reader through a roller coaster of emotions and forces him to think introspectively. When it starts off, I felt suspense; his wife's urging him not to go set off emergency flashers in my mind. I could feel in my bones that something bad was going to happen. Once he had begun his "journey," the setting of that journey was once again pretty creepy. "He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind" (376). I was fearful for Young Goodman Brown, and I was hoping that he would get to return to his wife, aptly named Faith. The fact that her name was Faith seemed symbolic to me. I made a mental note to analyze after I had finished reading, why Hawthorne had named her Faith. The surreal characteristics of the path and the forest he was in, only added to the suspense when he met his companion. Based on the description of this traveler, I came to the assumption that this was Young Goodman Brown in the future. I'm not really sure if that assumption is valid or not, but that was my initial response. I think it's interesting that my initial response is a supernatural one: a Back to the Future kind of response, where a person meets himself or herself in the future. This story gave me a creepy feeling, like a good horror story. The suspense of not knowing what was going to happen next, while all the while expecting something dramatic, quickened my heartbeat. Young Goodman Brown then meets his catechism teacher, which is symbolic of a person he assumed was very pious and automatically going to go to Heaven. It seemed to me that this story is all about hypocrisy, and how even the most pious-seeming people still have skeletons in their closet. This was later evidenced again when he finally got to the "altar" in the middle of the forest and he sees the spectacle.

Obtain information in research

RESEARCH METHODOLOGYIdentifying the research method or methodological analysis used to obtain information in a research is indispensable you must make up one's mind which method you are traveling to utilize in order to roll up the informations. Before acquiring started there are a twosome of footings that can be defined such as:Methodology:It is the manner that you are traveling to set about you research, and the attack of the research ( Whittaker 2009 ) .Research Method:Is the manner or the process that you are traveling to roll up your informations. The four most normally used are interviews, questionnaires, focal point groups and documental analysis ( ibid ) .Datas:The information that is needed to reply your research inquiry it is either numerical information or words ( ibid ) . By and large there are two types of research methods or approaches it either quantitative research or qualitative research.Quantitative Research:Normally covering or depicting quantification and measuring which can be analysed utilizing statistical trials to find a relationship between variables ( Whittaker 2009 ) .Qualitative Research:Tends to emphasis word as informations, such as the words of participants in interviews or written informations from paperss ( Whittaker 2009 ) . Recently there has been a tendency to unite these methods and utilize a 3rd method known as assorted method. When the two methods combine the research worker can profit from both for the good of the research. I will unite both methods in my research which is about safety in fictile fabrication because in some parts of the research I will hold to utilize quantitative and in the other parts qualitative as I will warrant subsequently. In quantitative researches world is viewed and inquiry for information is based upon scientific observation instead than philosophical like in qualitative which is non truly clear but by and large smaller sample sizes are used and studied in more deepness and inside informations in qualitative ( Miles and Huberman 1994 ) .Basically, qualitative research seeks to explicate the significance of societal phenomena through researching it instead than seeking to develop specific testable hypothesis like in quantitative. That is why we have used the quantitative portion because it is seeking to develop the safety of fictile fabrication and world is viewed in that. Normally quantitative is valued more than qualitative by governmental organisations as it focuses more in the & A ; lsquo ; what works ‘ docket and is easy generalisable, whereas societal work research has tended to favor qualitative approached ( Miles and Huberman 1994 ) . This research will travel through different stages and phases we can summarize the phases as follows: Phase I: Planning — — & A ; gt ; Stage 1: Choosing a subject: which was & A ; lsquo ; Safety in Plastic Manufacturing ‘ Phase 2: Choosing an attack: unite both quantitative and qualitative methods Phase 3: Determination and composing the literature reappraisal Phase II: DATA COLLECTION — — & A ; gt ; Phase 4: Roll uping your informations: either questionnaires or interviews and instance surveies. Phase 5: Analyzing your informations: by utilizing SPSS Phase 6: Writing your research: present your findings and happen the decision and recommendations if available In this research we will utilize a twosome of methods in-order to obtain the information needed but the most popular methods were interviews, questionnaires and studies. Every method will be defined and why it will be used in this survey.( 1 ) Interviews:Is one of the most popular research methods particularly for societal work, people normally feel familiar with it because it is something used in societal life about every twenty-four hours. Besides, it is a good technique to obtain information from people with cognition and experience, you can believe through your subject and do expressed things, for these ground I have chose interviews to be one of the methods for my survey. I will be questioning directors of mills, executives from wellness administrations and applied scientists these are the people who are suited for interviews because they have good experience in this field that we can utilize to happen the reply to the research inquiry. Some of these people might non be able to run into face to face that is why I will besides utilize telephone interviews it can be non as sufficient and accurate as face to face but still we can acquire utile information from it. Some of the advantages of interviews that they are good at analyzing complex issues and you get rich informations from it, besides your participants are enabled to discourse sensitive issues in an unfastened manner without perpetrating themselves in composing ( Whittaker 2009 ) . In my program we are non traveling to hold a batch of interviews our mark is 15-20 interviews ( depending on the information obtained ) because interviews are clip devouring to finish them and sometimes complicated to analyze them depending on how structured they are, how good is your participant ‘s experience ( Whittaker 2009 ) . There is a scope of interview types but chiefly the can be categorised as: structured, un-structured and semi-structured. In this survey we will utilize more semi-structured and structured interviews. The structured are extremely ordered and chiefly bring forthing quantitative informations that we will necessitate. This will be likely be used with the applied scientists in the mills. The semi-structured will hold a list of inquiries known as interview agenda and it will be more flexible and the order can be changed depending on the responses of the participants. This will be with directors of mills and executives from wellness and administrations. Some of the inquiries can be direct, in-direct, interpreting inquiries, presenting, etc. Silence can be really effectual in giving your participants clip to believe through their response and can add more utile information ( Whittaker 2009 ) .( 2 ) Questionnaires:This is the other type of method that will be used in this survey ; they originate from study tradition, which has a long history in societal scientific disciplines. Surveies are used to analyze big groups normally utilizing a standirised, quantitative attack to place beliefs and attitudes ( Whittaker 2009 ) .Questionnaires should be clear, avoid two-base hit barrelled inquiries, realistic, and non insistent. In this survey questionnaires will be aiming workers from mills that are affected by the deficiency of safety in their mills and employees from wellness administrations and random people who can hold any thought about this issue. To get down with there will be 200questionnaires ; it will be clear and related to safety and will non include any abbreviation that people can non understand. Language that is pec uliarly emotional or value laden and prima inquiries will be avoided excessively. There will be different types of responses like: Exact response: like the figure of old ages in work experience. Category response: such as choosing the degree of instruction. Dichotomous responses: yes/no Scale inquiries: degree of safety in the mill And there are unfastened ended inquiries that will give the participants to show his personal sentiment.( 3 ) Case Surveies:is a elaborate enquiry or experimental methods within a quantitative attack through to ethnography utilizing observation and interviews within a qualitative attack ( Payne and Payne 2004 ) . There will four mills in Saudi Arabia taken as a instance survey to detect the degree of safety there and what it lacks for.Mentions:Miles, M. and Huberman, A. ( 1994 ) Qualitative Data Analysis: An expanded beginning book.2nd editionPayne, G. and Payne, J. ( 2004 ) Key Concepts in Social ResearchWhittaker, A. ( 2009 ) Research Skills for Social Work

Biography of René Magritte, Belgian Surrealist

Renà ©Ã‚  Magritte  (1898-1967)  was a famous 20th-century Belgian artist known for his unique  surrealist works. Surrealists  explored the human condition through unrealistic imagery that often came from dreams and the subconscious. Magrittes imagery came from the real world but he used it in unexpected ways. His goal as an artist was  to challenge the viewers assumptions by using odd and surprising juxtapositions of familiar objects such as bowler hats, pipes, and floating rocks. He changed the scale of some objects, he deliberately excluded others, and he played with words and meaning. One of his most famous paintings, The Treachery of Images (1929), is a painting of a pipe below which is written Ceci nest pas une pipe.  (English translation: This is not a pipe.)   Magritte died August 15, 1967 in  Schaerbeek, Brussels, Belgium, of pancreatic cancer. He was buried in  Schaarbeek Cemetery. Early Life and Training Renà © Franà §ois Ghislain Magritte (pronounced mag ·reet) was born November 21, 1898, in Lessines, Hainaut, Belgium. He was the eldest of three sons born to Là ©opold (1870-1928) and Rà ©gina (nà ©e Bertinchamps; 1871-1912) Magritte. Aside from a few facts, almost nothing is known of Magrittes childhood. We know that the familys financial status was comfortable because of Là ©opold, ostensibly a tailor, made handsome profits from his investments in edible oils and bouillon cubes. We also know that young Renà © sketched and painted early on, and began taking formal lessons in drawing in 1910 — the same year that he produced his first  oil painting. Anecdotally, he was said to be a lackluster student in school. The artist himself had little to say about his childhood beyond a few vivid memories that shaped his way of seeing. Perhaps this relative silence about his early life was born when his mother committed suicide in 1912. Rà ©gina had been suffering from depression for an undocumented number of years and was so badly affected that she was usually kept in a locked room. On the night she escaped, she immediately went to the nearest bridge and threw herself into the River Sambre that flowed behind the Magrittes property. Rà ©gina was missing for days before her body was discovered a mile or so downriver. Legend has it that Rà ©ginas nightgown had wrapped itself around her head by the time her corpse was recovered, and an acquaintance of Renà ©s later started the story that he was present when his mother was pulled from the river. He was certainly not there. The only public comment he ever made on the subject was that hed felt guiltily happy to be the focal point of sensation and sympathy, both at school and in his neighborhood. However, veils, curtains, faceless people, and headless faces and torsos  did  become recurring themes in his paintings. In 1916, Magritte enrolled in the  Academie des Beaux-Arts  in Brussels seeking inspiration and a safe distance from the WWI German invasion. He found none of the former but one of his classmates at the Academie introduced him to  cubism, futurism, and purism, three movements he found exciting and which significantly changed the style of his work. Career Magritte  emerged from the  Academie  qualified to do commercial art. After a compulsory year of service in the military in 1921, Magritte returned home and found work as a draughtsman in a wallpaper factory, and worked freelance in advertising to pay the bills while he continued to paint. During this time he saw a painting  by the Italian surrealist  Giorgio de Chirico, called  The Song of Love, which greatly influenced his own art. Magritte created his first surreal painting, Le Jockey Perdu  (The Lost Jockey) in 1926, and had his first solo show in 1927 in Brussels at the Galerie de Centaure. The show was reviewed critically, however, and Magritte, depressed, moved to Paris, where he  befriended Andre Breton and joined the surrealists there — Salvador Dalà ­, Joan Miro, and Max Ernst.  He produced a number of important works during this time, such as The Lovers,  The False Mirror, and the Treachery of Images. After three years, he returned to Brussels and to his work in advertising, forming a company with his brother, Paul. This gave him money to live on while continuing to paint. His painting went through different styles during the last years of World War II as a reaction to the pessimism of his earlier work. He adopted a style similar to the Fauves for a short time during 1947-1948, and also supported himself doing copies of paintings by Pablo Picasso,  Georges Braque, and de Chirico. Magritte dabbled in communism, and whether the forgeries were for purely financial reasons or intended to disrupt Western bourgeois capitalist habits of thought is debatable.   Magritte and  Surrealism Magritte had a witty sense of humor that is evident in his work and in his subject matter. He delighted in representing the paradoxical nature of reality in his paintings and in making the viewer question what reality really is. Rather than depicting fantastic creatures in fictional landscapes, he painted ordinary objects and people in realistic settings. Notable characteristics of his work include the following: His arrangements were often impossible under the laws of physics.The scale of these mundane elements was frequently (and deliberately) wrong.When words were painted — as they were periodically — they were usually a witticism of some sort, as in the aforementioned painting, The Treachery of Images on which he painted, Ceci nest pas une pipe. (This is not a pipe.) Although the viewer can clearly see that the painting is, indeed, of a pipe, Magrittes point is just that — that it is only a  picture  of a pipe. You cant pack it with tobacco, light it, and smoke it. The joke is on the viewer, and Magritte points out the misunderstandings that are inherent in language.Ordinary objects were painted in unusual  ways and in unorthodox juxtapositions in order to evoke mystery. He is known for painting men in bowler hats, perhaps autobiographical, but perhaps merely a prop for his visual games. Famous Quotes Magritte spoke about the meaning, ambiguity, and mystery of his work  in these quotes and others, providing viewers with clues  as to how to interpret his art: My painting is visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, What does that mean? It does not mean anything because mystery means nothing, it is unknowable.Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist. Important Works: The Menaced Assassin, 1927The Treachery of Images, 1928-29The Key of Dreams, 1930The Human Condition, 1934Not to be Reproduced, 1937Time Transfixed, 1938The Listening Room, 1952Golconda, 1953 More of Renà © Magrittes work can be seen in the Special Exhibition Gallery Renà © Magritte: The Pleasure Principle. Legacy Magrittes art had a significant impact on the Pop and Conceptual art movements that followed and on the way, we have come to view, understand, and accept surrealist art today. In particular, his repeated use of commonplace objects, the commercial style of his work, and the importance of the concept of technique inspired Andy Warhol and others.  His work has infiltrated our culture to such an extent that it has almost become invisible, with  artists and others continuing to borrow Magrittes iconic images for labels and advertising, something that would no doubt greatly please Magritte. Resources and Further Reading Calvocoressi, Richard. Magritte.London: Phaidon, 1984. Gablik, Suzi. Magritte.New York: Thames Hudson, 2000. Paquet, Marcel. Rene Magritte, 1898-1967: Thought Rendered Visible.New York: Taschen America LLC, 2000.