''Golconda'' (french: Golconde) is an oil painting on

canvas Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbags ...

by Belgian surrealist René Magritte, painted in 1953. It is usually housed at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas. The piece depicts a scene of "raining men", nearly identical to each other dressed in dark

overcoat An overcoat is a type of long coat (clothing), coat intended to be worn as the outermost garment, which usually extends below the knee. Overcoats are most commonly used in winter when warmth is more important. They are sometimes confused with ...

s and bowler hats, who seem to be either falling down like rain drops, floating up like

helium balloons A gas balloon is a balloon that rises and floats in the air because it is filled with a gas lighter than air (such as helium or hydrogen). When not in flight, it is tethered to prevent it from flying away and is sealed at the bottom to prevent t ...

, or just stationed in mid-air as no movement or motion is implied. The backdrop features red-roofed buildings and a mostly blue partly cloudy sky, lending credence to the theory that the men are not raining. The men are equally spaced in a lattice, facing the viewpoint and receding back in rhombic grid layers. Magritte lived in a similar

suburban A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

environment, and dressed in a similar fashion. The bowler hat was a common feature of much of his work, and appears in paintings such as '' The Son of Man''. Charly Herscovici, who was bequeathed copyright on the artist's works, commented on ''Golconda'': One interpretation is that Magritte is demonstrating the line between individuality and group association, and how it is blurred. All of these men are dressed the same, have the same bodily features and are all floating/falling. This leaves one to look at the men as a group. Whereas if one looks at each person, one can predict that they may be completely different from another figure. As was often the case with Magritte's works, the title ''Golconda'' was found by his poet friend

Louis Scutenaire Louis Scutenaire (29 June 1905 – 15 August 1987) was a poet, anarchist, surrealist and civil servant. Born Jean Émile Louis Scutenaire in Ollignies, Belgium, he died in Brussels. Life Louis Scutenaire is chiefly remembered as a central figu ...

Golkonda Fort (Telugu: గోల్కొండ, romanized: ''Gōlkōnḍa'') is a historic fortress and ruined city located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. It was originally called Mankal. The fort was originally built by Kakatiya ruler Pratāparud ...

is a ruined city in the state of Telangana, India, near Hyderabad, which from the mid-14th century until the end of the 17th was the capital of two successive kingdoms; the fame it acquired through being the center of the region's legendary diamond industry was such that its name remains, according to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', "a synonym for 'mine of wealth'." Magritte included a likeness of Scutenaire in the painting – his face is used for the large man by the chimney of the house on the right of the picture.

References

External links

Interview with Charly Herscovici
*In Rushdie's book, ''Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights'': "In the Menil Collection gallery in Houston, Texas, a shrewd curator named Christof Pantikrator suddenly understood for the first time the prophetic nature of Rene Magritte's masterwork, ''Golconda'', ... ." Page 161–162. Paintings by René Magritte Rain in art Surrealist paintings 1953 paintings {{20C-painting-stub