The collective invention, 1934 by Rene Magritte

Rene Magritte reveals the strangeness hidden behind the most familiar things. the collective invention depicts a fish merged with a woman's legs stranded on the beach. this is mockery of the traditional mermaid. Rene's painting strips away the beauty and mystery surrounding the mermaid. He removed the beauty by using the opposites.

Also the fish is stranded thus removing all the elegance of the mermaid, a fish out of water. this is a stark opposite to mermaids or sirens who in myths would lure men into the sea with their beauty.

Rene Magritte would take things that were familiar and made them disturbing. This is true to surrealism.