As I was looking through the surreal art to find my inspiration I was struck by how many pictures mixed the realism of something we know with the unexpected. Especially in the case of René Magritte, Surrealism isn’t a fantasy world where nothing is what we expect. Instead, it is our world with unexpected bursts of absurdity.A consummate technician, Magritte’s work frequently displays a juxtaposition of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things.  René Magritte described his paintings by saying,”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 either, it is unknowable.” And the I stumbled upon this painting: la magie noire…