René Magritte
The Treachery of Images was painted when Magritte was 30 years old. It shows a pipe but at the bottom of the painting, in French states “This is not a pipe.” The Treachery of Images displays Magritte’s attempt to have the viewer question their reality. Magritte’s point is simple: the painting is not a pipe; it is an Image of a pipe. An anecdotal story is that when Magritte was asked if the painting was a pipe, he replied that of course it is not a pipe, and suggested that they try to stuff it with tobacco. He used the same technique in a painting of an apple, portraying a large green apple, with the line “This is not an apple.”
Like the other artists and poets associated with the Surrealist movement, Magritte sought to overthrow what he saw as the oppressive rationalism of bourgeois society. His art during these essential years is at times violent, frequently disturbing, and filled with discontinuities. He consistently interrogated conventions of language and visual representation, using methods that included the misnaming of objects, doubling and repetition, mirroring and concealment, and the depiction of visions seen in half-waking states-all of them devices that cast doubt on the nature of appearances, both in the paintings and in reality itself. The persistent tension Magritte maintained during these years between nature and artifice, truth and fiction, reality and surreality is one of the profound achievements of his art.
This painting was suggested by Miles, one of our users. If you would like to see any particular piece of art or artist, please drop me a note at [email protected] :)