Main content
Modernisms 1900-1980
Course: Modernisms 1900-1980 > Unit 5
Lesson 2: Surrealism- Surrealism, an introduction
- The Case for Surrealism
- Surrealism: Origins and Precursors
- Surrealism and Psychoanalysis
- Surrealist Techniques: Automatism
- Surrealist Techniques: Subversive Realism
- Surrealist Techniques: Collage
- Surrealist Photography
- Surrealist Exhibitions
- Surrealism and Women
- Man Ray, The Gift
- Magritte, The Treachery of Images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe)
- Conservation | René Magritte, "The Portrait," 1935
- Dali, The Persistence of Memory
- Dali, Metamorphosis of Narcissus
- Giacometti, The Palace at 4am
- Meret Oppenheim, Object (Fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon)
- Meret Oppenheim, Object (Fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon)
- André Masson, Battle of Fishes
- Oppenheim, Object
- Giorgio de Chirico, "The Anxious Journey"
- Room: 1930s
- Surrealism
- Room: 1940s
© 2023 Khan AcademyTerms of usePrivacy PolicyCookie Notice
Magritte, The Treachery of Images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe)
René Magritte, The Treachery of Images (Ceci n'est pas une pipe), 1929 (LACMA) Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
What language are the words written in?(2 votes)
It is in French. It reads, "This is not a pipe."(13 votes)
I have a hard time accepting the idea that Magritte is inviting you to question whether or not his painting of a pipe is in fact a pipe. I think he states very clearly that you are not looking at a pipe, but rather at a romantic depiction of a pipe. Given that statement, how can you ever approach a painting the same way again? When you start to ponder some of the iconic images in western art, you can't help but carry the same sense of skepticism about the "truth" in the images you see.(14 votes)- It might depend on how you approach a painting, but I don't think his pipe idea ought to change anything really. Painters rarely claim to paint 'truth', but often seek to communicate like a novel might.(3 votes)
- Couldn't Magritte have meant that the sentence itself is literally not a pipe?(5 votes)
When Magritte was interviewed about this, he made it clear that he was referring to the image of the pipe. His claim was that you couldn't stuff tobacco into the figure in the painting (as much as you might imagine that you could), and therefore it was not a pipe but only a representation of a pipe.(6 votes)
- Was Magritte asking a deeper question? Maybe we get conflicting message from images and text. Is he expressing his ideas regarding propaganda during this time period?(4 votes)
- Maybe not propaganda, since this was painted not only in a time of peace, but you can certainly see this as a prototype to pop art.(4 votes)
I am neither an artist nor a scholar, but I teach at a theological college in Taiwan where I've been promoting use of visual arts for a few years. After seeing this video, I'm inspired that when I return to Taiwan after my current sabbatical in North America I'll be selecting and printing pictures of Jesus from internet sources and laveling each one, "This is not Jesus." If nothing else, it should provoke discussion. 29 Feb 16(5 votes)
Because the language is not English, of course, the image speaks more to me...now, if I was French...maybe I would be leaning toward the message.
Where is the warning against cancer?(2 votes)
They didn't know about lung cancer back then, people were too busy dying of syphilis...(2 votes)
I think you first see the pipe and say to yourself "that's a pipe". Then you read the text and you look and see that it's not a pipe it's merely a painting of a pipe. A pipe is an actual physical object and this is a painting. The painting changes first how you perceive it and then how you perceive the world as well as all subsequent painting after that.(2 votes)- I once commented to a student in Taiwan about a shop across the street with a cow on it. He corrected me, saying that the shop across the street had a picture of a cow's face on it. I learned something that day.(2 votes)
Am I the only one who thinks this is redundant? And not nearly as "woke" as the painter intended to come across?(2 votes)
In that case the only real pipe is the first pipe ever that was called as such. A man makes a pipe calls it a pipe.. someone reproduces the idea. so it is just as much not a pipe as the one depicted in the image. Right?(2 votes)- I would have liked for the narrators to talk about this painting in connection with the myth of Pygmalion (which would date back to Ovid or before.) Or perhaps in conjunction with the iconoclasts. There is certainly nothing wrong with an artist reiterating a conception, however, this one is quite elementary. Magritte has built his straw man and torn it down without adding much if anything. What representational artist thought their work was the real thing? Which audience thought the representation was the real thing? What child, shown a picture of a car, thinks that they can get into the picture and go for a ride?(2 votes)
Video transcript
(jazzy music) Voiceover: The Museum of Art, in LACMA, and we're looking at Magritte's The Treachery of Images from 1929 or also called N'est pas une pipe, this is not a pipe. Voiceover: It's a hilarious painting. Voiceover: (chuckles) It is hilarious! It's an incredibly real
painting of a pipe. Voiceover: Magritte paints in this incredibly wonderful matter-of-fact, absolutely mundane, illustrative style. Voiceover: Yes, like he
was illustrating a catalog. Voiceover: And with the words underneath, it's as if you're looking
at one of the flashcards you would have as a
child where it would say Voiceover: That would say "pipe" but it says, "This is not a pipe"! Voiceover: That's right. And, of course, he's
right, it's not a pipe. It's a painting of a pipe. Voiceover: But it is a pipe. Voiceover: Where is the authority? Do we believe what we're
seeing in the veracity of the illustration, the sort of perfect representation of the
almost platonic pipe? Voiceover: It's the "or" pipe. Voiceover: It's the "or" pipe, exactly. Or, do we believe the text underneath, which tells us it's not a pipe? Which is stronger, the
representation of the thing or the language that denies it? Voiceover: For me? Voiceover: Yeah, for you. Voiceover: The picture of the pipe. Voiceover: The picture of
the pipe is more powerful than the language? Voiceover. Yes. Voiceover: That's so interesting
because I think for most ... Maybe that's because
you're an art historian. Voiceover: Maybe that's why
I became an art historian! Voiceover: (chuckles) Maybe so! Voiceover: I believe whatever I see. Voiceover: Because so many people believe what they read and in a sense I think the language has a kind of authority. For me, there's this sort of perfect almost balance and
struggle between the two where I just absolutely accept that pipe. It's there. It's this pipe. It's this perfect
representation of a pipe. The language is completely denying it and has tremendous authority as well. It's this fantastic tension
between that presentation and then that rejection
of the presentation. Voiceover: Then of course
there's the word "pipe" which is in a way just
as much an abstraction from the actual item of the pipe. Voiceover: Ah, okay. So the representation
of the pipe is two-fold. There's the representation of the pipe Voiceover: As an image. Voiceover: As an image that's iconic. Voiceover: And then there's the word. Voiceover: This linguistic symbol. Voiceover: Yeah. Voiceover: And they're both not a pipe. Voiceover: They're both
not a pipe! (chuckles) Voiceover: That's right. They're both actually ways
of representing a pipe or our notion of what that pipe is in somebody's mouth somewhere. Voiceover: What else could
this be a picture of? It is a pipe! Voiceover: So you're denying the text. They're both in the painting. Voiceover: Okay, so when
Magritte paints this he's clearly challenging this notion of authority and which and
what and it's really playful. Voiceover: And also it's
challenging the whole illusionistic history
of Western art, right? Voiceover: No question about it. And he's doing it again
with a kind of faux naturalism, right, with
this kind of self-conscious naturalism which really sort of transcends naturalism in its sort of self reference. Voiceover: Perfectly
painted and model of a pipe. Voiceover: But also
perfectly written text. Because the script is
again the kind of didactic script that you would find
in a kindergarten classroom, which is really meant to be instructive and meant to be full of authority. So this is a painting
really about the denial of authorities of language
and representation, isn't it? Voiceover: I guess so. I remember when my
daughter was really little and I woke up every morning and she looked at books with pictures just like this one, then pointed and I had to
give her the names for things. Voiceover: You could have
really screwed her up by giving her a book which said, "This is not a pipe"! (laughs) (jazzy music)