Golconda

Golconda (in French, Golconde) is an oil painting on canvas 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 nearly identical men dressed in dark overcoats and bowler hats, who seem to be drops of heavy rain (or to be floating like helium balloons, though there is no actual indication of motion), against a backdrop of buildings and blue sky. The men are spaced in a hexagonal grids facing the viewpoint and receding back in grid layers. Magritte himself lived in a similar suburban environment, and dressed in a similar fashion. The bowler hat was a common feature of much of his work, and appears in paintings like The Son of Man. Charly...