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What does it mean to write "This is not a pipe" across a bluntly literal painting of a pipe? Ren� Magritte's famous canvas provides the starting point for a delightful homage by the French philosopher-historian Michel Foucault. Much better known for his incisive and mordant explorations of power and social exclusion, Foucault here assumes a more playful stance. By exploring the nuances and ambiguities of Magritte's visual critique of language, he finds the painter less removed than previously thought from the pioneers of modern abstraction--"confronting them and within a common system, a figure at once opposed and complementary." Foucault's brief but extraordinarily rich essay offers a startling, highly provocative view of a painter whose influence and popularity continue to grow unchecked. This is Not a Pipe also throws a new, piquantly dancing light on Foucault himself.
Book purchase
This is Not a Pipe. With illustrations and letters by Rene Magritte, Michel Foucault
- Language
- Released
- 1983
- product-detail.submit-box.info.binding
- (Paperback)
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- Language
- English
- Authors
- Michel Foucault
- Publisher
- University of California Press
- Released
- 1983
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 66
- ISBN10
- 0520049160
- ISBN13
- 9780520049161
- Series
- Tags
- Fiction, True Stories, Philosophical Topics, Classics, France, Opinion Journalism & Essays, Scientific Theories
- First published
- 1973
- Original title
- Ceci n'est pas une pipe
- Rating
- 3.9 out of 5
- Description
- What does it mean to write "This is not a pipe" across a bluntly literal painting of a pipe? Ren� Magritte's famous canvas provides the starting point for a delightful homage by the French philosopher-historian Michel Foucault. Much better known for his incisive and mordant explorations of power and social exclusion, Foucault here assumes a more playful stance. By exploring the nuances and ambiguities of Magritte's visual critique of language, he finds the painter less removed than previously thought from the pioneers of modern abstraction--"confronting them and within a common system, a figure at once opposed and complementary." Foucault's brief but extraordinarily rich essay offers a startling, highly provocative view of a painter whose influence and popularity continue to grow unchecked. This is Not a Pipe also throws a new, piquantly dancing light on Foucault himself.