The Secret Life

The Secret Life — René Magritte. 1928.

Medium: oil on canvas. Dimensions: Unframed: 57.2 x 75.9 x 2.9 cm (22 1/2 x 29 7/8 x 1 1/8 in.).

Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

An important Surrealist active in Brussels and Paris, René Magritte used traditional painting techniques to create images of realistically rendered objects juxtaposed illogically. Magritte and other Surrealists were inspired by the poetry of Isidore Ducasse (1846–1870), who wrote under the pseudonym Comte de Lautréamont, and defined beauty as “the chance meeting on a dissection table of a sewing machine and an umbrella.” Magritte’s visual paradoxes, which may seem contradictory or irrational, are designed to undermine our complacent belief in a stable, predictable world.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.