The Battle of the Argonne, 1959 by Rene Magritte

In a showdown between two seemingly opposite forms, a large cloud and an equally large stone face each other, floating in the sky above a serene landscape. The viewer cannot help but notice the disconcerting nature of this work; the giant stone appears as weightless as the cloud, yet stone is notably heavy and typically anchored to the ground. Of works such as this (that convey the "world of stone") Meuris states, "Gravity is necessarily succeeded by weightlessness. And with Magritte the process is quite independent of the law of physics...Actually, all things considered, the problem of weightlessness has more to do with the poetic than the scientific dimension.

Faced with these paintings [of the "world of stone"], it is appropriate to draw on "knowledge." It is enough that, by their presence before us, they transport us into other realms in a state of total serenity, outside time.