Among Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte's many thought-provoking paintings, The Treachery of Images produces persistent discussion.
Many of his works present visual paradoxes, but this particular painting explicitly raises the question "What is real?" The top three quarters of the painting shows a pretty ordinary-looking pipe; underneath are the words: "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (This is not a pipe) . Viewers naturally ask why the artist would make such a contradictory statement, especially since the illustration so clearly portrays a pipe.
Yet, as French philosopher Michel Foucault asks in his essay on this painting, "... who would seriously contend that the collection of intersecting lines above the text is a pipe?" He continues: "Must we say: MyGod, how simpleminded! The statement is perfectly true, since it is quite apparent that the drawing representing the pipe is not the pipe itself." Michel Foucault, This is Not a pipe, James Harkness (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1983), p. 19. True enough. One would be hard pressed to hold, fill with tobacco, or smoke Magritte's "pipe," since it's nothing more than a drawing of a pipe.
