The Treachery of Images
- In full:
- The Treachery of Images (This Is Not a Pipe) or The Wind and the Song, in French La Trahison des images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe)
What is The Treachery of Images?
What does the statement “This is not a pipe” signify?
When and where was The Treachery of Images first exhibited?
How has The Treachery of Images influenced other artists and culture?
Where is The Treachery of Images currently displayed?
The Treachery of Images, oil on canvas painting by Belgian artist René Magritte, completed in 1929. It is considered a notable work of Surrealist art, as well as one of Magritte’s most famous paintings. Since 1978 it has been displayed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
Description and symbolism
The Treachery of Images (This Is Not a Pipe) depicts a wooden tobacco pipe on a solid tan background, stylized like an advertisement. Written in cursive underneath the pipe is the statement “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”). The seemingly contradictory statement remains the source of the painting’s lasting intrigue.
“It’s quite simple. Who would dare to say that the PICTURE of a pipe is a pipe? Who could smoke the pipe in my picture? No one. So IT IS NOT A PIPE.” —René Magritte, in a 1947 interview with Louis Quiévreux
Challenging the viewer’s perception of reality, The Treachery of Images brings into question the nature of representation and language. The text “This is not a pipe” may refer to the pipe depicted in the painting, in which case, the depiction is, in fact, not a real pipe but rather a representation of the object. Similarly, the word “pipe” is also not a real pipe. Other interpretations read “this” as a reference to the painting as a whole or even the word “this” itself—in both cases, they are still not a real pipe.
Creation and versions
Magritte and his wife, Georgette (née Berger), had moved to Paris in 1927 to be closer to the French Surrealist group of André Breton and Paul Éluard. Magritte had created Cubist and Futurist works in the past, but by the late 1920s he considered himself less of an artist and more of an intellectual communicating through his artwork. The Treachery of Images was completed in 1929, one of many “word paintings,” a series that included works such as La Clef des songes (1927; “The Interpretation of Dreams”) and Le Palais des rideaux, III (1928–29; “The Palace of Curtains, III”) by Magritte that explored, and, on occasion, severed, the relationship between words and images.
Magritte delved further into the ideas presented by The Treachery of Images in “Les Mots et les images” (“Words and Images”), a short commentary published in the December 1929 issue of the journal La Révolution surréaliste (“The Surrealist Revolution”). A collection of 18 statements accompanied by illustrations, “Les Mots et les images” discusses the arbitrariness of names, the interchangeability of images and words, and the relationship between painting, language, and reality.
Magritte frequently revisited the image of the pipe throughout his career, the object appearing in various reiterations of The Treachery of Images. Other versions of the pipe are seen in:
- La Trahison des images (“The Treachery of Images”), gouache on card, 1952
- L’Air et la chanson (“The Tune and Also the Words”), gouache on paper, 1964
- Les Deux mystères (“The Two Mysteries”), oil on canvas, 1966
Exhibition history
The Treachery of Images was completed in 1929 but first exhibited in 1933 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts (Center for Fine Arts) in Brussels. The painting found international attention when it was included as part of the 1954 exhibition “Magritte: Word vs. Image” at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York City.
In 1978 The Treachery of Images was purchased in an auction by the LACMA for $115,000, with funds provided by the Mr. and Mrs. William Preston Harrison Collection. The painting had previously been owned by artist and collector William Copley, who had gifted Magritte’s The Liberator (1947) to the LACMA in 1952. The painting has been loaned to other museums on occasion; it was exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris for a few months in 2016–17 and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in 2017–18.
Influence and legacy
Magritte’s use of text would influence later artists, including John Baldessari, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Marcel Broodthaers, and more. The Treachery of Images has been considered an icon of modern art and an important forerunner of contemporary art. In the era of social media, the painting has appeared in memes.
The painting’s text, “This is not a pipe,” would be frequently referenced in later works and exhibitions focusing on Magritte and his paintings. In 1968 philosopher Michel Foucault published his essay “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This Is Not a Pipe”), in which he described Magritte’s pipe and caption as an unraveled calligram, a process in which “image itself, along with the name it bears, will lose its identity,” bringing a new appreciation for Magritte’s pipe and its various iterations.