The Treachery of Images (This is Not a Pipe)

A pipe is painted with calm, illustrative precision - and beneath it, in careful script, the words 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe': this is not a pipe. Rene Magritte's joke is also a profound lesson: the image is not the object, only a painting of one, and the words, the picture, and the thing itself are three separate orders. Now at LACMA, the Treachery of Images is among the most discussed paintings of the century - a deadpan meditation on representation, language, and reality that has rippled through philosophy and art ever since.