Art Questioning Art

An artwork that makes an interesting commentary on art and reality is Rene Magritte's La trahison des images, or The Treachery of Images.  Currently the work is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.


Rene Magritte is a Belgian surrealist who is probably best known for his iconic paintings of faceless men in bowler hats.  This painting, which was completed in 1929, makes an obvious, yet poignant assertion about how we perceive the world both through media and through other filters that call into question the line between what's real and what's impression; between the object and its representation.

The painting is simple enough, as you can see.  Obviously the painting is a representation of a pipe floating in space against a solid beige-pink matte background.  The pipe is simple enough - from the shading it seems to be lit from the left.  I imagine the pipe is meant to be a kind of two-toned resin with a sole gold band as ornamentation separating the mouthpiece from the bowl.  At the bottom of the painting (and this is what makes it interesting!), A simple statement in French, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe", or "This is not a pipe."  Hmmm....

But it is a pipe - what else can it be?  Okay, let's take a step or two back. The painting is a painting.  It is canvas on a wood frame with pigments that have been applied on one side in a kind of pattern that appears to be a pipe.  But the object/painting itself is not a pipe.  

Art, at it's best is meant to make us think outside of our comfort zone, to shake us up, to present some other reality that may be more real than real.  This painting presents the real reality that calls attention both in the piece and the title that the public at large is, for the most part, duped by the image.  Think about commercial art and our familiarity with corporate logos and products.  We can call to mind images of a Kellogg's Raisin Bran box just as well as Abraham Lincoln's Memorial.  The images become our world, rather than the things themselves.  Thus, when anything is given a representation, that is the thing we gravitate toward rather than the real.  

So, is everything a representation of something else?  That's the question that I cannot answer with any degree of confidence.  "Yes", for the reasons stated above; but "no" because I shudder at the idea that all that we believe is reality is only a projection.

Here's a link to a quick video that has more insight into the painting.