René Magritte was not merely a surrealist—he was a philosophical disruptor disguised as a gentleman in a bowler hat. Born in Lessines, Belgium, in 1898, Magritte brought a cerebral, often playful tension to the surrealist movement. While other surrealists leaned into the subconscious and dreamlike, Magritte's work stayed rooted in the ordinary—apples, pipes, hats—rendered with near photographic precision. But it was precisely through this clarity that he challenged perception. He once said, "Everything we see hides another thing." This tension between image and meaning became the crux of his art.