Talk:The Treachery of Images

OR watch

• the template on this article claims there's original research. where? i can't spot any. i'm removing the template in a while unless someone can find any evidence of any W guice 14:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

here you go: It might be true that Magritte's point in these "Ceci n'est pas" works is that no matter how closely, through realism-art, we come to depicting an item accurately, we never do catch the item itself, per se, as a Kantian noumenon, but capture only an image on the canvas. But that interpretation trivializes Magritte's insight -- for it is true of any painting, and every artist and child would admit it, that what the painting does is only present an image of a thing, and the thing itself is not on or in the canvas. It might be more plausible to interpret Magritte as commenting on Freudian psychoanalysis -- a topic not very far removed from many of his surrealistic works, anyway. Sigmund Freud, especially in his dream analysis, continually asserted that what clearly and obviously seemed to be an X in a dream was not really an X, that it was an X only patently, on the surface, but not latently or deeply, that the X in the dream represented or was a metaphor for some other thing, Y. The dream-image train is really a penis, for example. So when Magritte says "This is not a pipe," what he means is that it may be possible to think that it is only an image that stands for something else, that the phenomenal reality of the pipe obscures or hides the true reality lying underneath. The difficult question, if we go this far, is whether Magritte intended to provide support for or to illustrate sympathetically Freudian dream analysis -- the treachery of dreams -- or, instead, was mocking it: "You mean this image, which is obviously a pipe-image, is not really a pipe-image? Tell me another!" i can see how you'd miss that, it's only half the article. --dan 05:44, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• while i appreciate your ever-so-clever sarcasm, i think [[citation needed]]s would probably be more apt for this bit W guice 11:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

it reads very strongly to me as the thoughts of whoever wrote that up, but since they don't actually say it is, i suppose citation needed would be more appropriate. --dan 21:44, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

the true translation of "Ceci n'est pas une pipe"

Provide a citation of someone else in the art world considering this a legitimate pun, and not just some American high school French student who looked in his dictionary of French dirty words--or else this looks a lot like the sort of original "scholarship" we frown on on wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.72.132.222 (talk) 04:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

the true translation of "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" is "this is not a blow job".

You must rethink The Treachery Of Images, adding the sense of humor that used the autor...

89.128.232.190 18:37, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

either the above is a joke, or the above is a statement by a person who didnt do their french homework very well -69.29.145.150 01:59, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

No, he's right. 'Blow job' actually does translate as 'pipe', though the French word 'pipe' has multiple meanings. --poorsod^talk 20:36, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

"Pipe" is really a slang term for "blow job" in French. I am pretty certain that Magritte knew it and that he was fully aware of the possible interpretations of his work. Just google search for "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" and you'll find a few explicit pictures. Hugo Dufort (talk) 16:43, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

The google search seems no longer promising - topics are still exluded and some people seem to not wanting to see and accept sexual evidence - but for those having the chance to see the Magritte expo in Brussels there is the very evidence of the meaning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nsteinh (talk • contribs) 15:15, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I took the initiative to add the translation about this. As a french, I must say that the two translation are either true. The only thing to check is : does "pipe" mean blow job when the artist painted this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.233.32.66 (talk) 14:35, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I took the initiative to delete it. It is rather unencyclopaedic, unless there is clear evidence that that alternative translation was in the minde of the painter. LachlanA (talk) 23:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

It is a clear evidence! It is the whole purpose of this painting! That's the funny part of it, the thing that make this painting so interresting for the public. So I ask to re add the two translation. And in any case, it is important for english spoking person to explain the two possible interpretation for french public. No? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.233.32.66 (talk) 14:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Pardon me sirs, but the way I understand the pun differs from your "blow job" interpretation: Magritte suffered from erectile dysfunction, which he suspected was caused by his pipe smoking. While 'pipe' may mean blow job, another one of it's possible meanings is 'penis.' So the text says "this is not a pipe" because clearly it is only a representation of a pipe. It also says "this is not a penis" because the object of the artist's pleasure has switched from the sexual organ to the pipe. For the artist, the pipe is now a representation of said sexual organ. If you look at it this way, the pun makes sense and is kinda funny. I read about it somewhere one time, but all a google search of "Magritte erectile dysfunction" brought me were blogs talking about Magritte with phony comments selling Viagra. If you want to think about "Les Deux Mystères" using this interpretation, you may do so with confidence as long as you notice that the pipe on the canvas with the text is about the same color as caucasian skin, and the bigger, more real (for lack of a better term for being at one less remove from reality since it isn't a painting in the painting) pipe is black. And, like, we all know how jealous we are of the black guys when we sneak a peek in the showers at the gym. Note: I dislike using the same word so often in one paragraph, but not many synonyms for the word "penis" serve to make me more learned (even though common sense would say that the more synonyms I used the more learned I would seem). So I wrote this out, and then went back over and replaced all of the dick, wiener, schlong, johnson, pork sword, bacon torpedo, and luncheonmeat truncheon phrases with "penis" because some earlier poster seems to harbor prejudice against people who look up all the dirty words in the dictionary. Thanks for reading. 7-29-10 I wish to remain anonymous. The conversation I am contributing to here is like two years old, so I'll just post this in the main article and someone can remove it if it isn't appropriate.

No, no, no, NOT TRUE it's not a blow job.

"Les premiers usages vérifiés de "faire une pipe" ne datent que de la première moitié du XXe siècle, chez les prostituées, l'expression "faire un pompier" étant usuelle auparavant." Source: http://www.expressio.fr/expressions/tailler-une-pipe.php

The expression is born mid-XXth century, so it can't be a blow job! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E35:8A8D:FE80:6C6E:B190:8F0C:B57B (talk) 23:59, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I think you might have mistranslated that French website. It says that verified usage of "pipe" for fellatio dates from the first half of the twentieth century. So it was around as an expression in the period where Magritte worked on this. Whether or not Magritte thought of this meaning at the time, I do not know. I was surprised to read this wikipedia page and not see it included. I was always taught that it was an extra layer to the painting. Not only is it not a pipe (but just a representation of one) but it is also not the representation of a pipe (in the meaning of a blowjob). Apparently however that does not seem to be a widespread thing.

Googleing shows me that there are indeed others who do make that fellatio connection (as well as on the talk page) but it always seems to be pretty controversial and dismissed by others.

Personally (which has no value for changing anything in the main article) I would find it very hard to believe that Magritte picked to paint a pipe for this image and did not think it would be slightly funny. Any other object would have sufficed to relay most of his message in the painting. Jorenvanmullem (talk) 14:46, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

T-shirt

http://www.threadless.com/product/543/This_is_not_a_Pipe

Could this be included in the "In Popular Culture" section? Raz.you.up 19:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

No. P. S. Burton (talk) 15:14, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Other interpretations

What's with the other interpretations? They're nonsense and smell of original 'research'. They're currently marked with [citation needed], but I think plain removal is more in order.

A Webcomic?

Robert Zakheim, author of the webcomic Legendary created a parody of the image consisting of Colonel Mustard hefting a lead pipe. The caption was, "Ceci n'est pas Colonel Moutarde avec une pipe."

Is this really necessary? I hardly think a public comment is 'pop culture' 72.65.22.88 00:52, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

That's not "The Treachery of Images"

It's an image of "The Treachery of Images". SnappingTurtle 16:34, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, SnappingTurtle. You win. —Aladdin Sane (talk) 22:24, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Quote attrributed to magritte

I don't have any verification for the quote on this page, but in _Obit Magazine_ <http://www.obit-mag.com/news.php?id=160> there is the quote

He explained, “Can it be stuffed with tobacco, my pipe? No, it’s only a depiction, isn’t it? If I had written ‘This is a pipe’ under my picture, I would have been lying!”

Unfortunately, that article doesn't cite a reference either... LachlanA (talk) 00:06, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I have the book that the quote is apparently from right in front of me and the quote is nowhere to be found. It needs to be deleted. 21 January 2013. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.170.147.250 (talk) 13:59, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Series of Paintings?

I'm a little confused about the "series" of paintings. The painting pictured is the only painting I know of with the title The Treachery of Images, but he certainly has other paintings of the "Ceci n'est..." type. Is this really what is meant? If so, then which of these paintings are held by the LA County Museum of Art? I can think of two other paintings that fit this type: This is not an Apple (1964) and The Two Mysteries (1966). Being painted more than 30 years later, can we call these part of the series? If not, then what paintings are part of the series? Mosfet007 (talk) 03:03, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

The French page (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Trahison_des_images#Historique_de_la_s.C3.A9rie) gives a list of drawings/paintings in the series (not all with titles).

(Incidentally, neither the main article nor the Talk page in the French version mentions any Freudian/blow-job interpretations, though does note that numerous interpretations have been made, including in the 1973 Foucault book.) Pjrm (talk) 07:58, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I see the problem. It gives rise to two problems within the article: 1) Who (which museum, etc.) owns which painting within the series, and 2) Where is each painting within the series housed? I provided a reference for who owns (which museum) This is not a pipe and where it is housed; however the text and the Infobox still contradict: The text states that the series is located in two places, the Infobox says (once context is comprehended) that an item from the series is located in one place. Confusing at best. —Aladdin Sane (talk) 13:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

My French is poor, but the article referenced above, while it does list multiple images, only refers to one of them as (translated) The Treachery of Images. It reads to me as if that title only applies to the painting completed in 1929, but that it was part of a series of images of other names which reflected similar themes. I therefore suggest that our article is currently incorrect to state that Treachery is a series. --99.13.228.79 (talk) 07:01, 15 December 2009 (UTC) (Oops, that was me.) --Joe Decker (talk) 07:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Based on discussions with French speakers, and having searched for other citations, I've changed the article to reflect that "The Treachery of Images" refers to a specific particular painting, not a series. All the listed references refer to it as a single painting. --Joe Decker (talk) 07:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Dadaist

I'm removing the Dadaist reference of the first line. Though he was aware of and probably influenced by Dada, I have never heard him termed a Dadaist. Even if someone could find an example where the work is more properly termed Dada instead of Surrealism, I don't think that's enough since he's got examples of Impressionism and Cubism in some of his early works, too. The Magritte article doesn't call him a Dadaist either. Mosfet007 (talk) 03:03, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

The Answer

It's not a pipe. It's an image which represents a pipe, in our minds ;) — ᚹᚩᛞᛖᚾᚻᛖᛚᛗ (talk) 20:49, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Ceci n'est pas un idiote

It is my understanding that when this painting was exhibited for the first time, someone hung a photograph of Magritte next to it with the legend, "Ceci n'est pas un idiote" -- "This is not an idiot." Is this true? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.86.226.31 (talk) 03:47, 8 April 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.217.212.34 (talk)

Understanding of what? GregorB (talk) 20:16, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

References to authors in "literature of science fiction"

I'd like to thank Joe Decker above for clearing up the "series" confusion and start a new topic (since I found it when researching the "series" topic). The French Wikipedia article fr:La Trahison des images has this paragraph:

Plus précisément à cette époque, dans la peinture mais aussi dans la littérature des écrivains de science fiction A. E. van Vogt, Isaac Asimov et d'autres, les artistes vont introduire dans l'art des théories humaines et de sociologie vulgarisées dans les années 1950/60. Cela fait référence à la sémantique générale (1933) dont la phrase la plus représentative est « la carte n'est pas le territoire »

Google translate says it says:

Specifically at this time, in painting but also in the literature of science fiction writers A. E. van Vogt, Isaac Asimov and others, the artists will introduce the art of human theories of sociology and popularized in the years 1950/60. This refers to the general semantics (1933) whose most representative sentence is "the map is not the territory"

I'd like to add it to the English article, but I have no sources to back up the assertion that the authors and the painting are linked, and I don't think the addition would be as un-contentious in English as it seems to be in French. Does anyone know a source on the influence of the image on authors as van Vogt and Asimov so we can add it? —Aladdin Sane (talk) 16:59, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The mutual influence is probably Borges' "On Exactitude in Science" - as far as I'm aware GS more or less stole this far more ingenious concept years after the fact and conflated Borges theory with the GS one. K just posited a relatively unsophisticated concept of the abstract blazingly obvious to anyone who studied Euclidean Geometry (itself already largely supplanted by Non-Euclidean) at the time Korbynzski was actually teaching. Borges' concept of the map is a realized abstraction that exceeds the object described, not something so simple as GS' social constructionism via Euclid. Foucault (and Baudrillard and many others) were influenced by Borges. I'd be unsurprised if Asimov was as well. General semantics has never been accepted in the academy and is a fringe element in America due to its lack of any scientific rigor. Asimov, given his scientific background would be unlikely to buy into it. I don't know if he was familiar with Magritte, but Asimov was extremely well-cultured so it's possible. 74.68.23.194 (talk) 18:16, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Literary and cultural criticism

This section doesn't actually add anything. It basically says that several people talk about the piece in several books. Can anybody actually add what they discuss? 67.193.182.150 (talk) 05:07, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

"Fault In Our Stars" sentence

I'm sorry that someone apparently watched that movie "The Fault in Our Stars" last weekend and thought it would be appropriate to add a sentence about it to this entry, but I think that that sentence's information pretty obviously fails to meet at least a few criteria for inclusion in wikipedia articles, e.g. significance. Plus, there's no citation, so I think it pretty obviously needs to be removed. Can someone who knows more about editing do this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.34.121.130 (talk) 23:42, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

There is no pipe.

Didn't this inspire that whole spoon thing in the Matrix? Anyone have some cites?23:08, 12 July 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.243.94.83 (talk)

Trivia

I don't know if this should be included here, or maybe over there: The "Immersion Box" release of the Pink Floyd album Wish You Were Here is inspired by this painting. See e.g. https://www.amazon.de/Wish-Were-Here-Immersion-Blu-ray/dp/B004ZNAUVW 85.179.1.3 (talk) 13:14, 30 May 2016 (UTC) Arnd

Can a French speaker please record themself saying the caption?

Request from a person who doesn't speak French: Can someone who speaks French fluently please record "Ceci n'est pas une pipe"? Just say it into a microphone, save it as an .ogg, and upload it to WikiMedia with a CC-BY license. I wanted to hear the phrase pronounced correctly, and I am sure I am not the only person. (As evidence, it is fairly easy to find this on Youtube. Copyright prevents me from simply stealing the audio from Youtube.) Fluoborate (talk) 19:39, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

The Two Mysteries

I feel like the article ought to make some mention of Magritte's followup painting "The Two Mysteries" ("Les Deux Mystères"), which depicts a giany pipe floating above a print of The Treachery of Images — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.121.6.113 (talk) 17:13, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Ceci n'est pas un captcha

https://mltshp.com/p/1F1Y8 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.205.14.37 (talk) 12:48, 19 January 2020 (UTC)