Golconde

Identical men in dark suits and bowler hats hang suspended in the sky above a row of ordinary houses, evenly spaced like raindrops, neither clearly falling nor floating. Rene Magritte renders the uncanny scene with deadpan calm, the anonymous, interchangeable figures raising questions about individuality and conformity in modern life. Now in the Menil Collection in Houston, Golconde is among his most iconic images - a quiet, dreamlike vision of mass society, the faceless bowler-hatted everyman (his recurring stand-in) multiplied into a strange, gently disquieting downpour over the rooftops.