#584 The Shadow & Its Shadow

Where does one start & the
other finish? & surely they're
mispositioned — she should
be behind him, the proverbial
power behind the throne, as it
were. Or should she? After all,
she was in front of him so often
as he painted her — at the piano,
smoking a cigarette, in the nude, as
she posed for him for more than forty
years. She twelve, he fifteen when they
first met. Married seven years later when
they met again. Side by side this time, a mut-
ual shadow. Changing positions over the next
four decades. Until his death; & for her twenty
shadowless years, only shades, & the paintings
on the walls. Plus that unfinished one on an easel.






photo of René & Georgette Magritte by Paul Nougé. Brussels, 1932.