Knowra The Treachery of Images The Treachery of Images A 1929 painting by René Magritte shows a pipe above the French sentence “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”). It distinguishes a depicted object from the object itself.
Representation : The use of signs, images, or models to stand for things other than themselves. The painting makes representation visible by denying that its painted pipe is an actual pipe.
Depiction : A visual representation that presents a subject by resembling or conventionally standing for it. The painted pipe depicts an object without possessing its physical properties.
René Magritte : A Belgian Surrealist painter known for unsettling juxtapositions and images that question representation. Magritte painted the work as part of his sustained investigation of images and language.
Michel Foucault : A French philosopher and historian whose work examined knowledge, language, institutions, and power. Foucault made Magritte’s painting the subject of a book-length analysis of resemblance and representation.
Sign : A perceivable form that conveys meaning through its relation to something beyond itself. The pipe image and French sentence function as different signs for the same object.
Reference : The relation by which an expression or sign identifies something in the world or in thought. The caption’s demonstrative “this” raises the question of whether it points to the image or the pipe.
Surrealism : An artistic and literary movement that sought to unsettle rational habits and explore the unconscious. The painting’s deliberate contradiction reflects Surrealism’s challenge to ordinary ways of seeing and thinking.
This Is Not a Pipe : Michel Foucault’s 1973 essay on Magritte’s painting, later expanded into a book. It develops the painting’s puzzle into an argument about the separation of words and images.
Semiotics : The study of signs, their meanings, and the systems through which they communicate. Semiotics supplies terms for analyzing the gap between the painted pipe, its name, and its referent.
Denotation : The direct, conventional relation between a sign and what it names or identifies. The inscription and image denote a pipe through different sign systems.
Show all 21