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Friday, March 2, 2012

Peculiar Picture #7


Something different; here’s one I didn’t create. It’s worth checking out.


I was thinking about this painting the other day. It’s been reproduced on posters and bumper stickers so you might have seen it. You could have walked past without giving it a moment’s notice because it’s so deceptively simple. It was painted in the late twenties by a Belgian artist named Magritte. He called it The Treachery of Images, and the French words painted on the canvas translate as follows:


This is not a pipe.


From a creative point of view, this is a remarkably unsatisfying depiction of a pipe. It lacks interesting paint application and is devoid of any creative flourish. Compared to the work of Rembrandt, this looks like a sign painting, something that should be flapping in the breeze in front of a tobacco shop. Still, our brain takes in the image and translates it at the speed of light—pipe. But as the painting clearly states, this is not a pipe.


Many people will say that it most certainly IS a pipe and scoff at anyone suggesting otherwise. Their proof is simple and draws on a flashcard mentality. They refute Magritte’s painting with the claim that even children will yell, “PIPE” when confronted with a flashcard image of one. This merely proves Magritte’s point: a flashcard, like a painting, cannot be transformed by what is represented on it. It remains a flashcard. The reason children don’t yell out “flashcard!” isn’t because they aren’t intelligent, it’s just that they, like those troubled by Magritte’s painting, have yet to embrace abstract thinking.


So if it isn’t a pipe, what the heck is it? Why it’s a painting, of course, a painting of a pipe, not to be confused with the real thing. Do you feel like you’ve been fooled? Are you thinking you knew all along it wasn’t a real pipe? You’ve been fooled all right, we all have been, but not by Magritte.


Magritte’s comment, plainly written on this painting, shatters our interpretation of reality by denying a thousand years of representational art judged by how well the eye is fooled into thinking something real. The Treachery of Images is a manifesto declaring the emergence of something relatively new. Magritte is telling us that his painting is not a copy of anything in our world; it doesn’t rely on technique to fool anyone. It exists on its own terms. By clearly stating what his creation is not, the artist may have created the first truly honest painting.


Modern art was born from this idea. The focus of contemporary painting is no longer about fooling the eye. Now what is…simply is. “A rose is a rose is a rose,” Gertrude Stein reminded us, as did Andy Warhol. His famous Campbell’s Soup cans are not merely pictures of soup cans. They’re a reflection of popular culture, mass production and the confusion between fine art and the commercialism of all that we hold sacred. They’re about taking a can opener to our minds.


Magritte may have explained it best when questioned about this image. He replied that of course it wasn’t a pipe, just try to fill it with tobacco.


What do you think of Magritte’s painting? Does it anger you, bore or confuse you?

24 comments:

  1. Way too deep for me Steve. I understand what you're saying, but what's the point of painting a picture of a pipe unless it's to show a pipe? It's like that blank canvas the painter explains is the embodyment of nihilism. I don 't get it. I guess I'm one of those kids you mentioned who have yet to embrace abstract thinking. In fact, I know I am. :)

    S

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  2. It doesn't bore me at all, but it intrigues me, which I think all good art and literature do. They get the wheels moving, priming the pump. I enjoyed studying it-

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  3. I'd have to say BORING, like all that pseudo-intellectual stuff about "art." One of the first short stories I wrote was in 10th Grade when I wrote a story about an "artist" who decides to make a statement by repainting a white canvas completely white. Then of course it takes the art world by storm. I don't think my opinion's changed much since then.

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  4. I'd have said pipe, but when I was in college I had a professor that said I was too logical. Imagine that. I had a terrible time with poetry. Just can't wrap my mind around that stuff for anything.

    Have a terrific day and weekend. :)

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  5. Of course I saw a pipe, but I love the explanation of why it's NOT a pipe - fascinating! You should link to the Magpie tales this week - the prompt is a picture of Campbell's Soup cans (Magpies can be any kind of writing - story, poem, whatever). Here's the link: http://magpietales.blogspot.com/2012/02/mag-106.html

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  6. You say that he says it's not a pipe. It's written in French (I think) so I'm not sure what it says. Besides, can we really believe what a Frenchman tells us?

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  7. Oh, now see, that's really not fair. Why bother to paint something and then chide the beholder for his/her interpretation of it? "Oh, you idiot! How dare you to look at my painting and see what I have painted? You are just another stupid voyeur of my genius!"

    Whatever.

    That painting isn't a lot of things: it isn't a donkey, a spaceship, a baloney sandwich, or the skyline of Cleveland, Ohio, either. So I guess I find Magritte's point to be a bit precious and egotistically self-indulgent. To his credit, it provokes. But so would a painting of a severed arm, a brutal, war-torn landscape, or a hollow-eyed executioner.

    I'd rather look at Vermeers, Caravaggios, ter Borchs, or oh, lots of others, really. But thanks for something to jump-start me today, and to get me serious about heading to the Cleveland art museum for a long put-off revisit.

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  8. Interesting. Art is the artists interpretation of what s/he sees, as it meets our interpretation of that interpretation.

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  9. You sir...have now analyzed a pipe to death. I don't think I shall ever look at one the same.

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  10. I like your discussion of the painting more than the painting itself. So, put that in your pipe and smoke it!

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  11. It takes WAY more than a picture to get me angry. Didn't find it boring. In fact, I found some of the comments rather interesting as how your readers perceived the artist's work and their reaction to the artist's intent to stump us. Wasn't confused by it as it is just playing with semantics. I had fun with it. French is one of the few languages that I read well, beside English that is. Let the artist have his fun putting forth a simple little riddle. Clever post.

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  12. I think this is brilliant. It reminds me of the book "At Swim-Two-Birds" which was a story about a college student writing a story, in which his character writes a story. The more things fold in on themselves the more we are forced to look at literature, paintings, etc as something more than a brief escape from the world or a reflection of it. They remind us that pieces of art are the world filtered through the mind of first the artist, and then the mind of the reader or viewer. That is what is so fun about art.

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  13. I've always liked it. I do like Magritte. It seems rather too simple, sometimes, and yet the images endure and stick in the mind. that is what a lot of modern art is about, I think

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  14. I think me and that Magritte fellow would have gotten along...

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  15. So sometimes a cigar is just a pipe?

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  16. as it's 7:06 am on saturday morning and i have yet to have a coffee my initial thought was "huh?"

    I'm very much dubious on some forms of art and i guess that my initial reaction would be that painting an apple and putting the word "pear" underneath it doesn't make you a genius

    Still - it is an interesting concept

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  17. Tres tres amusant! Besides... I 'got' it right away!;-) Great post to remind us what's what though!

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  18. You stirred them up with this one, Stephen. Or should I say Rene. I liked the painting and loved the discussion you provoked.

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  19. It interests me and makes me smile.

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  20. I don't believe a word he says. Is that how you spell pipe in french? Wonderful discussion.

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  21. Sadly, his opinion doesn't really matter to me. I see a pipe. Or a painting of a pipe, if one wants to get really technical. I never understood all that art interpretation foofaw. The eye of the beholder should matter the most in the end. If I need instructions with a painting I lose interest. ;)

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  22. Sure looks like a pipe to me. They can rationalize it anyway they want. It is a picture of a pipe from where I sit.

    I tried to comment on your newest post but for some reason it won't load. Not sure what the problem is.

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  23. well- it isn't a pipe....the end!
    Gotta tell you - while scrolling through your 2012 posts I realized that I have a lot of reading to do! Somehow I missed a lot! Guess it was because last year I didn't have the email reminder set up. Cheers- Have a great day!

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