"My painting is visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question 'What does that mean'? It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable." René Magritte |
The Treachery Of Images (La trahison des images) is a painting from Belgian Surrealist painter René Magritte, famous for its inscription Ceci n'est pas une pipe (pronunciation (help·info)) or this is not a pipe. It is currently housed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in Los Angeles, California.
The picture shows a pipe that looks as though it might come from a tobacco store advertisement. Magritte painted below the pipe "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (This is not a pipe), which seems a contradiction, but is actually true: the painting is not a pipe; it is an image of a pipe. As Magritte himself commented: "Just try to stuff it with tobacco! If I were to have had written on my picture 'This is a pipe' I would have been lying."
In his book, This Is Not a Pipe, French critic Michel Foucault discusses the painting and its paradox.