thisisnotapipe

This is not a pipe

by Bob on Novermber 25, 2007

Rene Magritte made many brilliant and surreal paintings, and many had quite important meanings for our lives.

One such painting was his famous 1929 "La Trahison des Images" ( "The Treachery of Images"). It is a painting of a smoking pipe with the words "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" as a caption. Many people are bewildered by it. Clearly it is a pipe, so why is Magritte saying it's not a pipe ?

Magritte is saying it's not a real pipe: it's a painting or rendering of a pipe.

And there's a huge difference. A real pipe is something in our hands, used to hold tobacco, and for smoking. It is sensorily tangible. It has a real shape to it. It is touchable. And it works as a pipe.

The rendering or the painting of a pipe is a nice jolly gesture for memory, but it's not the real thing. We should never confuse the real thing with a rendering, unless we are deeply into Metaphysics.

Some religions and cultures and societies even forbid the use of images totally.

Part of Magritte's point of view was a warning that we should not let the paintings and renderings and images of a pipe, destroy our use and enjoying of a pipe in the real world.

Hence, Magritte called the painting "The Treachery of Images". Images are treacherous if we are not on our toes.

Our modern world is all about images and not real life anymore.

Let's take an techie example. On the social interaction networks, like MySpace, you can see someone has a group of friends in their list. Now, I can see one person's list, and she has Suzanne Vega, the famous singer, John Lennon, the late musician and Beatle, Carole King, Bjork, Enya, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Sting, Avril Lavigne, and many other celebrities.

So we figure we are impressed because this person knows and has friends who are famous. And we even figure she's well-connected and maybe even hob-nobs with the rich, talented and famous in real life.

But it's not true. These are fan websites or someone else's website posing as the real person, with or without an apology. So it's not a pipe. It's the fiction of an idea of friendship. One is not friends with Suzanne Vega or Carole King, as it seems to appear, but with a MySpace page posing as Carole King, Sting, etc. And there may be a plurality of such "John Lennon" or "Carole King" distinct pages. It all seems kind of a bit schizoid. It would be better if the pages read instead of "Carol King" with Carol's photo, "Carol King's Fan Page".

Admittedly one might be more avuncular about it all. But such is the treachery of images as Magritte warned us in 1929 with his brilliant painting. Beware.