René Magritte’s 1964 painting showing a bowler-hatted man with a green apple is The Son of Man.
The oil painting depicts a formally dressed man standing before a low wall, with the sea and cloudy sky behind him. A green apple floats in front of his face, obscuring most of his features while leaving one eye partly visible. Magritte’s image turns an ordinary portrait into a puzzle about concealment and seeing.
Magritte painted the work as a self-portrait, although its imagery is deliberately enigmatic rather than biographical. The title echoes Christian language about the “Son of Man,” but the painting does not provide a single official explanation of the apple or the hidden face.
The Son of Man is often confused with Magritte’s other famous works. Golconda shows raining bowler-hatted men, The Human Condition features a painting within a painting, and The False Mirror presents a huge eye. The apple-and-bowler-hat image is specifically The Son of Man.