On the Threshold of Liberty

On the Threshold of Liberty refers to two oil on canvas paintings by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte. The work depicts a large room with the walls paneled with different scenes or windows. Each panel reveals a different subject: a sky, fire, wood, a forest, the front of a building, an ornamental pattern, a female torso and a strange metallic texture featuring spherical bells (a common Magritte element). Inside the room is a cannon. The original painting was completed in 1929 and is currently part of the collection at the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen in Rotterdam. A second version was commissioned in 1937 by Magritte patron Edward James. For this version, the orientation was changed from horizontal to vertical leading to an increase...