Ceci n’est pas une pipe
The treachery of images — René Magritte
Irony is not the only concept I picked up while attempting to understand the painting, “this is not a pipe”. We must point out the whimsical relationship between an object and it’s name. It is Magritte’s way of explaining that an image is not to be confused as a tangible object. The artist does not want us to see his work as anything other than art, just as he does not want us to accept the fact that the word “pipe” is actually connected to the thing itself. Magritte’s philosophy behind the painting was the image being different than the object: The image is symbolic of the object. You can’t stuff a painting with tobacco, light it and then smoke it!
Crafted in 1929, this oil on canvas by René Magritte creates a paradox out of the conventional notion that objects correspond to words and images. The point is that even if paintings are representational they are only a symbol of the thing they represent. This may seem obvious, but it’s pretty clever way to address the semiotic gap between the visual and the verbal, and makes you think twice about the relationship we have with images. In true surrealist fashion, Magritte is questioning the terms of reality that are often taken for granted…a picture of a thing is not that thing. Speaking of surrealism, for me, the reflection of light knowingly coming from the left is the highlight of the painting.
Now, according to my understanding of semiotics so far, Saussure would say that the expression or statement of Magritte’s pipe that is not a pipe, will be the signifier, the painting of the pipe is the signified and an actual, physical pipe will be the sign.
Magritte held French philosopher Michel Foucault in great esteem and Foucault once wrote of this artwork,
From painting to image, from image to text, from text to voice, a sort of imaginary pointer indicates, shows, fixes, locates, imposes a system of references, tries to stabilise a unique space. But why have we introduced this teacher’s voice? Because scarcely has he stated, “This is a pipe,” before he must correct himself and stutter, “This is not a pipe, but a drawing of a pipe,” “This is not a pipe but a sentence saying that this is not a pipe,” “The sentence ‘this is not a pipe,’ this is a not a pipe: the painting, written sentence, drawing of a pipe — all of this is not a pipe.”
We can all now agree that the image of a pipe is not a pipe. But what is the point? What does it all mean? When asked this question, Magritte once replied in an interview that, just as a mystery, the images don’t mean anything, because mystery doesn’t mean anything either, it is unknowable.
