early evening in downtown Chicago.
Rene Margritte is most known for paintings that I'm just not that excited about. Beautifully painted images of a fire place with a train suspended in mid air as it comes through the back of the fire place. An apple suspended in a landscape, a bowler hat with clouds instead of a face. Sorry, these paintings just don't rock my boat. But then there is a painting that in my mind is so different from his usual. It is a street lamp lighting the underside of a tree and the courtyard while above the dark trees is a royal blue evening sky. Just that contrast between light and dark. It is such a normal sight and at the same time an abstract composition. Okay maybe it is like his other work - real and yet abstract - but for this painting he didn't have to use the surreal; it is just that turning point in the evening that provided a natural surreal image.
I saw that painting in Venice at the Guggenheim for the first time. I bought the poster but left it at the hotel when it was time to leave. I got on the train leaving Venice only to realize that I didn't have the poster. There was no way I would make it back to the hotel with my luggage in tow. So, I stashed my backpack on the train and took off running, flew into the hotel and then back to the train at a dead run. I jumped onto that train as it was pulling out of the station - images of my luggage arriving in Rome without me provided a whole bunch of extra adrenaline.
I still have that poster. I also found that the painting must have been a favorite of Margritte's as well. It turns out he did several variations of the painting - tweaking the light or the courtyard scene. So, this shot is my Rene Margritte shot.
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