René Magritte
Belgian surrealist painter, whose Not to be Reproduced and Golconda open and close the essay.
PersonSources & confidence: Qualified confidence
Checked 2 October 2026 · AI-assisted review
Artist identity, birth in 1898 and identification of Not to Be Reproduced and Golconda.
- René Magritte Foundation
Artist identity, birth in 1898 and identification of Not to Be Reproduced and Golconda.
- Wikidata entity identity and cross-references
The entity identity and its recorded authority identifiers; not an independent authority-register validation.
What this check doesn’t establish
- No jurisdiction-independent copyright expiry is asserted.
- Death year is cross-referenced through Wikidata rather than a civil register.
- VIAF/ROR values were cross-checked against the Wikidata entity; the external authority registry itself was not independently inspected.
Confidence applies to the scope above, not every claim made by the underlying source. How confidence works
Two of his paintings frame the essay. Not to be Reproduced shows a man looking into a mirror and seeing the back of his own head, which the essay uses for an identity that refuses to be pinned down; Golconda rains identical bowler-hatted men over the rooftops.
Artwork rights depend on the work, reproduction and jurisdiction; no universal expiry date is assigned here.
In the essays
- You Can't Shame a Fork
Read the essay
Images
- Golconda
Created
- Not to be Reproduced
Created
Record history
Catalogue source: knowledge/people/rene-magritte.md
Generated by claude-code/claude-opus-5 on 2026-07-25