You’re probably familiar with Magritte’s famous, playful paradox: Ceci n’est pas une pipe – This is not a pipe. In his painting, he points out that what you see isn’t a pipe, but a representation of one. You can’t stuff it with tobacco. It doesn’t function as a pipe. It merely looks like one. A simple but striking observation.
Magritte was referring to a painting. But what about a photograph? Is it just a representation – or something more real?
Unlike a painting, a photograph isn’t purely symbolic. Light from a real object physically hits the camera’s sensor or film. The image has an actual, causal relationship with the subject. That gives it a certain credibility – a sense of realness – that a painting doesn’t necessarily have.
So, in theory, what you see in a photograph is a pipe. Right? You can’t be wrong here. Well done.
Still, I’d take this pipe with a pinch of tobacco.
February 2025
