SURREALISM WITH A SMILE

As a school, surrealism has all but died of its own painted agonies. Its liveliest remaining master is one of the few with a blithely bubbling sense of humor. In an exhibit opening at a Manhattan gallery next week, Rene Magritte proves once again that he has all the technical facility of the best surrealists and almost none of their nightmare overtones. "It is much easier," he says, "to terrorize than to charm." Magritte charms with jokes-in-oils like this properly bowlered, quietly defiant self-portrait (upper right), a wine bottle turning into a carrot (above), and a sunlit sky that casts no light on the earth below.

The artist is a moonfaced little man of 54 who putters about Brussels, cultivating the philosophy that sprouts under his bowler. "Most people," he explains, "act unconsciously, thinking they know their goal. As for me, I'm consciously searching for the unknown." Four mornings a week Magritte stays home in his stuffy little apartment to paint. His technique is straightforward and exquisite; his results are oblique, funny, and sometimes forceful. Like Roman candles fired into the dark, his paintings are meant not to illuminate but to enhance the mystery of life.

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