The Empire of Lights

The Liberator

The Treachery of Images

     "The danger of relying on rationality when viewing a Surrealist work is glaringly apparent in Magritte's The Treachery (or Perfidy) of Images.  Magritte presented a meticulously rendered trompe l'oeil depiction (a very illusionistic rendering: literally, "fools the eye") of a briar pipe.  The caption beneath the image, however, contradicts what seems obvious: Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ("This is not a pipe").  The discrepancy between image and caption clearly challenges the assumptions underlying the reading of visual art.  Like the other Surrealists' work, this painting wreaks havoc on viewers' reliance on the conscious and the rational."

- Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. II, p. 1040



Time Transfixed

On the Threshold of Liberty