The Belgian surrealist René Magritte (1898-1967) is known for his startling paintings that often double as philosophical riddles. One of his most stark and provocative works, The Treachery of Images (1929) is an exploration of meaning and language, juxtaposing an image of a pipe above the sentence ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe.’ – French for ‘This is not a pipe.’ A reflection on the fraught nature of words, this video essay explores The Treachery of Images in the context of the work of the influential Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), who argued that the relationship between an object and its name is arbitrary.
Video by The Nerdwriter
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Nature and landscape
After independence, Mexico was in search of identity. These paintings offered a blueprint
15 minutes
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Mathematics
Spiral into the ‘golden ratio’ – and separate the myths from the maths
4 minutes
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Art
A young Rockefeller collects art on a fateful journey to New Guinea
7 minutes
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Art
Defying classification, fantastical artworks reframe the racism of Carl Linnaeus
8 minutes
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Film and visual culture
Space and time expand, contract and combust in this propulsive animation
5 minutes
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Art
When East met West in the images of an overlooked, original photographer
9 minutes
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History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
13 minutes
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Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes
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Nature and landscape
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker
10 minutes