The Treachery of Images (This is Not a Pipe) (La trahison des images [Ceci n'est pas une pipe])

© C. Herscovici/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
My gallery Comment Tag Order Photography*
View comments
Add a comment
Please log in to add comments.
Enter your LACMA Collections username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
New to our collections website? Sign up to create an account and start saving your favorites. Please note that this account is not the same as the MyLACMA account you may have for ticketing and membership transactions.
Current tags
misleading, irony, french, pipe, simple, surreal, writing, brown, black, tan
Please log in to add tags.
Enter your LACMA Collections username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
New to our collections website? Sign up to create an account and start saving your favorites. Please note that this account is not the same as the MyLACMA account you may have for ticketing and membership transactions.
* Nearly 20,000 images of artworks the museum believes to be in the public domain are available to download on this site. Other images may be protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights. By using any of these images you agree to LACMA's Terms of Use.

The Treachery of Images (This is Not a Pipe) (La trahison des images [Ceci n'est pas une pipe])

Belgium, 1929
Paintings; scrolls
Oil on canvas
Canvas: 23 3/4 x 31 15/16 x 1 in. (60.33 x 81.12 x 2.54 cm); Framed: 30 7/8 x 39 1/8 x 3 in. (78.42 x 99.38 x 7.62 cm)
Purchased with funds provided by the Mr. and Mrs. William Preston Harrison Collection (78.7)
Modern Art
Currently on public view:
Ahmanson Building, floor 2 MAP IT
Ahmanson Building, floor 2

Since gallery displays may change often, please contact us before you visit to make certain this item is on view.

Curator Notes

La Trahison des images (Ceci n'est pas une pipe) (The Treachery of images [This is not a pipe]) is one of Rene Magritte's Surrealist masterpieces and an icon of modern art....
La Trahison des images (Ceci n'est pas une pipe) (The Treachery of images [This is not a pipe]) is one of Rene Magritte's Surrealist masterpieces and an icon of modern art. Heavily influenced by Freudian psychology, Surrealism represented a reaction against the "Rationalism" that some believed led Europe into the horrors of World War I. It attempted to join the realm of dreams and fantasy to the everyday world. Magritte's word-image paintings are treatises on the impossibility of reconciling words, images, and objects. La Trahison des images challenges the linguistic convention of identifying an image of something as the thing itself. At first, Magritte's point appears simplistic, almost to the point of provocation: A painting of a pipe is not the pipe itself. In fact, this work is highly paradoxical. Its realistic style and caption format recall advertising, a field in which Magritte had worked. Advertisements, however, elicit recognition without hesitation or equivocation; this painting causes the viewer to ponder its conflicting messages. Magritte's use of text in his word-image paintings influenced a younger generation of conceptually oriented artists, including Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Edward Ruscha, and Andy Warhol.
More...

Bibliography

  • Lash, Miranda. Photorealism: Beginnings to Today: The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Collection. New York: Scala Art Publishers; New Orleans: New Orleans Museum of Art, 2014.

  • Arnason, H.H., and Marla F. Prather. History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998.

  • Lash, Miranda. Photorealism: Beginnings to Today: The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Collection. New York: Scala Art Publishers; New Orleans: New Orleans Museum of Art, 2014.

  • Arnason, H.H., and Marla F. Prather. History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998.

  • Ed Ruscha: Ribbon Words. New York: Edward Tyler Hahem, 2016.

  • Engler, Martin, ed. John Baldessari: The Städel Paintings. Munich: Hirmer, 2015.

  • Haskell, Caitlin. René Magritte: The Fifth Season. San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2018.
  • Price, Lorna.  Masterpieces from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  Los Angeles:  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988.
  • Freeman, Judi. The Dada & Surrealist Word Image. Los Angeles:  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989.
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art Members' Calendar 1990.  vol. 27-28, no. 12-1 (December, 1989-January, 1991).
  • Sylvester, David.  René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné.  The Menil Foundation, Philip Wilson Publisers, 1992.
  • Frank, Patrick; Preble, Duane; and Preble, Sarah.  Artforms: An Introduction to the Visual Arts.  Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1999.
  • Siegfried, Gohr.  Magritte. San Francisco:  San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2000.
  • Edson, Laurie.  Reading Relationally.  Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2000.
  • Nesbit, Molly.  Their Common Sense.  London: Black Dog Publishing, 2000.
  • Green, Christopher.  Art in France: 1900-1940.  Yale University Press Pelican History of Art, 2000.
  • Cartwright, Lisa and Sturken, Marita.  Practices of Looking: an Introduction to Visual Culture.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
  • Adams, Laurie Schneider.  Art Across Time.  New York: McGraw Hill, 2001.
  • Dyrness, William A.  Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue.  Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Company, 2001.
  • Peers, Glenn.  Subtle Bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium (The Transformation of the Classical Heritage).  Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
  • Rothfield, Lawrence, ed.  Unsettling "Sensation": Arts-Policy Lessons from the Brooklyn Museum of Art Controversy.  New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London: Rutgers University Press, 2001.
  • Ernst Klett Verlag.  Moderne Kunst.  Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag, 2001.
  • Douglass, Colleen.  "Can You Trust What You See?"  The Christian Science Journal 119 (6): 38 (June 2001).
  • SURREAL: "René Magritte".  Bergmann, Rudij, Director.  Sunshine TV Productions, Produer.  Television, videocassette, videodisc and DVD: 2002.
  • Velasquez, Manuel.  Philosophy: A Text with Readings.  Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Group, 2002.
  • Craig, Alan B. and Sherman, William R.  Understanding Virtual Reality: Interface, Application, and Design.  San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., 2002.
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  New York: Thames and Hudson, 2003.
  • Barron, Stephanie, Michel Draguet, and Sara Cochran. Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Belgium: Ludion, 2006.
  • Umland, Anne, ed. Magritte: the Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2013.
  • Eliel, Carol. John Altoon. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art and DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2014.
  • The Bergman Collection. New York: Christie's, 2014.
  • Stäuble, Claudia, ed. The Paintings That Revolutionized Art. Munich: Prestel, 2015. 
  • Muchnic, Suzanne. LACMA So Far: Portrait of a Museum in the Making. San Marino, California: Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 2015.
  • Fletcher, Valerie J. Marvelous Objects: Surrealist Sculpture from Paris to New York. Washington, DC: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 2015.
  • Zalman, Sandra. Consuming Surrealism in American Culture: Dissident Modernism. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2015.
  • Borja-Villel, Manuel J. and Christophe Cherix. Marcel Broodthaers: a Retrospective. New York: The Museum of Modern Art; Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 2016.
  • Ottinger, Didier, ed. Magritte: The Treachery of Images. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2017.
  • Engberg, Siri, ed. Allen Ruppersberg: Intellectual Property 1968-2018. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2018.

  • "2005-2006 Selected Acquisitions." LACMA Insider 4, no.1 (2006): 4-7.

More...