The Treachery Of Images

The Treachery of Images (La trahison des images 1928–29) is a painting by Belgian Surrealist painter René Magritte, famous for its inscription Ceci n'est pas une pipe , French for this is not a pipe. It is currently housed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in Los Angeles, California and was previously housed at the Art Institute of Chicago. 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, but rather an image of a pipe. As Magritte himself commented: "The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it’s just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture ‘This is a pipe,’ I’d have been lying!" (cited in Harry Torczyner, Magritte: Ideas and Images, p. 71.) Magritte extends the style and effect in his 1930 painting... full article at wikipedia