Golconda (painting)

Infobox Painting|

backcolor=#FBF5DF
painting_alignment=right
image_size=300px
title=Golconde
artist=René Magritte
year=1953
type=Oil on canvas
height=81
width=100
height_inch=31.9
width_inch = 39.37
diameter_cm =
diameter_inch =
city=Houston, Texas
museum=The Menil Collection

"Golconda" (in French, "Golconde") is an oil painting on canvas by Belgian surrealist René Magritte, painted in 1953. It is currently housed at the Menil collection in Houston, Texas.

The piece depicts a scene of identical men dressed in dark overcoats and bowler hats, who seem to be floating like helium-balloons (though there is no actual indication of motion), against a backdrop of buildings and blue sky. It is humorous, but with an obvious criticism of the conventional effacing of individuality.

Magritte himself lived in a similar suburban environment, and dressed in a similar fashion. The bowler hat was a common feature of much of his work, and appears in paintings like "The Son of Man".

Charly Herscovici, who was bequeathed copyright on the artist's works, commented on "Golconda":

As was often the case with Magritte's works, the title Golconde was found by his poet friend Louis Scutenaire. Golconda is a ruined city in southeast India, which from the mid­fourteenth century till the end of the seventeenth was the capital of two successive kingdoms; the fame it acquired through being the center of the region's legendary diamond industry was such that its name remains, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "a synonym for 'mine of wealth'."

Magritte included a likeness of Scutenaire in the painting - his face is used for the large man by the chimney of the house on the right of the picture.

In popular culture

* Rufus Wainwright's 2002 "Across the Universe" video, directed by Len Wiseman and starring Dakota Fanning, looks like "Golconda".
* Belgian director Koen Mortier's 2006 television commercial "Angels" for Dutch insurance company RVS featuring Bonnie Beecher singing Jeff Alexander's "Come Wander With Me" also looks like "Golconda" [ [http://dekku.blogspot.com/2007/02/rvs-angels.html RVS: Angels] ] .
* An episode of the italian comic "Dylan Dog" is entitled "Golconda".

References

External links

* [http://www.museumnetwork.com/entertainment/_talking_points/magritte_herscovici/magritte_herscovici_home.asp Interview with Charly Herscovici]