The Treachery Of Images

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"This is not a pipe." The Treachery Of Images (La trahison des images) (1928–1929)
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"This is not a pipe." The Treachery Of Images (La trahison des images) (1928–1929)

The Treachery Of Images (La trahison des images) is a painting from Belgian Surrealist painter René Magritte, famous for its inscription Ceci n'est pas une pipe (pronunciation (help·info)) or this is not a pipe. It is currently housed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in Los Angeles, California.

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; it is an image of a pipe. As Magritte himself commented: "Just try to stuff it with tobacco! If I were to have had written on my picture 'This is a pipe' I would have been lying."

In his book, This Is Not a Pipe, French critic Michel Foucault discusses the painting and its paradox.

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