biographies Aug08

Roberto Benigni
Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI
born October 27, 1952
Academy Award-winning Italian actor, writer and director of film, theatre and television

René Magritte
november 21, 1898 - august 15, 1967
Belgian surrealist artist
he began to paint at the age of twelve, and studied art at the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels from 1916 to 1918
in 1926, while earning a living designing advertisements and posters, Magritte joined several friends in the formation of a Belgian Surrealist group, aiming to expand conscious understanding of reality by presenting utterly improbable tableaux
the fantastic compositions that resulted were made more palatable and, paradoxically, even more absurd by Magritte's strict adherence to the conventions of representational painting