Friday, June 3, 2011

The Treachery of Images (La trahison des images, 1928–29, sometimes translated as The Treason of Images) is a painting by the Belgian René Magritte, painted when Magritte was 30 years old. The picture shows a pipe. Below it, Magritte painted, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (About this sound pronunciation (help·info)), French for "This is not a pipe." The painting is not a pipe, but rather an image of a pipe, which was Magritte's point:

The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture "This is a pipe," I'd have been lying!

The theme of pipes with the text "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" is extended in his 1966 painting, Les Deux Mystères.

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