A lone flying bird

A large bird flies powerfully in the sky. Its body is painted in the same color and pattern as the forest below, as if it were camouflaging itself. Three white eggs are abandoned in the nest on the gray wall below. Why is the bird flying on its own instead of sitting on its eggs?

There are many artists painting a spring theme, but few have depicted spring as imaginatively as René Magritte. ‘Spring’ (photo) was painted in oil in 1965 and then turned into a lithograph in France in 2003. Magritte is well-known for his surrealist paintings, placing unfamiliar or contradictory images on the canvas. In this painting, the bird’s nest and stone wall are depicted realistically and three-dimensionally, while the bird is depicted flatly and unrealistically, as if cut out of patterned paper.

The flying bird is a frequent image in Magritte’s paintings. Birds usually symbolize freedom and movement. They also imply ideals and dreams. The bird’s nest symbolizes life, birth, and protection, but in this painting, it has been abandoned by its mother. The low stone wall is covered with marks. The rough and cold stone wall may metaphorize the recent harsh winter. Is the artist expressing his desire to leave the past behind and go in search of his ideals, leaving behind the eggs that are obstacles to his freedom and flight?

The most distinctive feature of this painting is the bird's camouflage. Camouflage is the technique of disguising oneself to deceive the enemy. This could symbolize winter disguised as spring. The bird's forest pattern can be interpreted as a message that life cannot be separated from nature.

Magritte's paintings impose various questions and interpretations from viewers. View the painting again from the perspective that all human nature is good. Perhaps the mother bird is not abandoning her eggs but is flying away to find food. Spring has come, so she needs to gain strength to take care of them again.