THE ART OF RENé MAGRITTE AND MICHEL FOUCAULT

René Fran?ois Ghislain Magritte, the well known Belgian surrealist artist, died in August 15, 1967.

René Magritte described his paintings as "visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, 'What does that mean?'. It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable."

Magritte's constant play with reality and illusion has been attributed to the early death of his mother. Psychoanalysts who have examined bereaved children have hypothesized that Magritte's back and forth play with reality and illusion reflects his "constant shifting back and forth from what he wishes—'mother is alive'—to what he knows—'mother is dead'."

FOUCAULT ON MAGRITTE

The conversation between Rene Magaritte and Michel Foucault developed when Magritte, after reading Foucault’s book ‘the order of things’ wrote a letter to him with some photographs of his paintings. The letter was about relationship between things and words, thought and visuals, resemblance and similitude, Magaritte seeks confirmation on what he believes about thought and things.

Foucault in turn wrote a famous essay on Magaritte's art. In his essay “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” Foucault explores the subtleties of Magritte’s visual form of linguistic criticism.

In the essay Foucault discussed the relationship between language and image in Magritte’s painting. Foucault selected two of the painter’s arguably now best-known works, namely “La Trahison des images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe)” from 1929 and “Les Deux mystères” (1966), produced almost 40 years later.

Yet precisely this is the quality of Magritte’s painting that Foucault terms non-affirmative. Indeed, although his painting style, clear, familiar, almost impersonal, encourages the observer to recognize the things “as something,” neither the drawn pipe on the board nor the word “pipe” nor the pipe floating above them are actually a pipe.

CONTRARY TO REPRESENTATION

On Magritte’s canvas words and images are made of the same material. The artist intertwines verbal signs and sculptural elements; for him they have equal value, are even interchangeable. Foucault sees two of Magritte’s significant achievements in this. First, he makes language implode under the weight of its own meaning. With only their form depicted on the canvas, the letters pass into an undefined space, themselves becoming part of the depiction. They are intended to be seen, not read. In this way the artist ultimately also reveals the arbitrariness, the artificiality of language. Second, Magritte defies a form of painting that serves the mimetic representation of an external world.

The problem of similarity is at the core of this. Here Foucault distinguishes between the terms “resemblance” and “similitude.” “Resemblance” describes representation and implies a hierarchy in starting with an original object that another resembles. Magritte wrote in one of his letters to Foucault that only thought is capable of “resemblance,” by reproducing that which the world offers it, which it sees, hears and recognizes. “Similitude” on the other hand describes a form of similarity based on repetition and plurality.

HOW ART CAN CHANGE OUR VIEW OF THE WORLD

In Magritte’s art there is no finger pointing from the canvas at something lying beyond it. It is much more the case that a game of transferred meanings within the image is set in motion that knows neither beginning nor end. The drawing of a pipe resembles a real pipe, the written text resembles the drawing of written text. Yet all the symbols in “Les Deux mystères” nullify the intrinsic similarity that they only seemingly bear within them, and open up an open, circulating web of similarities. Foucault calls it an “art of resembling” liberated from the “as if.”

Thus Magritte is less interested in painting itself and more in how art can change our view of the world. He explored semiotics, philosophy and phenomenology with interest, addressed questions of realism and similarity and in his correspondence with such theorists as Chaim Perelman, Alphonse de Waelhans and indeed Michel Foucault always advocated the idea that images and words were equal as means of expressing a thought process and conveying knowledge. Foucault acknowledged this and understood that for Magritte, painting itself was thinking.

Photo:

- Michel Foucault, This is Not a Pipe, 25th

Anniversary Edition, 2008