Paintings Reproductions The Therapist by Rene Magritte (Inspired By) (1898-1967, Belgium) | WahooArt.com

Rene Magritte (i) - Oil (i) - Surrealism (i) Rene Magritte had a disliking for psychotherapists, thinking that they were the ones who needed therapy the most. In the painting The Therapist, a figure sits, devoid of a face or body, yet it wears a hat and a poncho, the poncho is open, draped over a cage which has two birds, one on the ledge and one inside. The figure holds a cane and a bag, the gender cannot be ascertained but the cane, shoes and hands may indicate that it is an older male. The birds in the cage seem to be communicating, the one outside may be luring the other to freedom while the one inside may be happily confined, perhaps neither knows that the cage is open and that they are free. The open poncho may suggest that the figure is presenting his ‘inside’, to us, a glimpse into his soul. But any interpretation is rebuked by Magritte, saying "If one looks at a thing with the intention of trying to discover what it means, one ends up no longer seeing the thing itself, but of thinking of the question that is raised." The mystery is that there is none, and the only mystery that exists in his work is invisible, unknowable.