Ceci n'est pas une pipe
Author(s): Michel Foucault and Richard Howard
Source: October , Spring, 1976, Vol. 1 (Spring, 1976), pp. 6-21
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/778503
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"Ceci n'est pas une pipe"
MICHEL FOUCAULT
TRANSLATED BY RICHARD HOWARD
I. Here Are Two Pipes
First version, that of 1926, I believe: a pipe, carefully
(in a regular, deliberate, artificial hand, the kind of sc
find on the first line of an exercise book or remaining o
teacher's demonstration), this sentence: "This is not a
The other version-and the last, I should think-can be found in Dawn at the
Antipodes. Same pipe, same statement, same script. But instead of being juxtaposed
in an indifferent space with neither limit nor specification, text and figure are placed
within a frame, itself resting on an easel which stands on very evident floorboards.
Up above, a pipe just like the one drawn in the frame but much larger.
In the first version, only the simplicity is disconcerting. The second visibly
multiplies the deliberate uncertainties. The frame leaning against the easel and
resting on wooden pegs suggests a painter's picture: a finished, exhibited work
which bears, for a potential spectator, the statement commenting on or explaining
it. And yet this naive script which is in fact neither the work's title nor one of its
pictural elements, the absence of any other indication of the painter's presence, the
simplicity of the grouping, the broad planks of the floor-all this suggests a
blackboard in a classroom; perhaps a wipe of a rag will soon erase both drawing and
text; or perhaps it will erase only one or the other in order to correct 'the mistake'
(drawing something which will not really be a pipe, or writing a sentence affirming
that this is indeed a pipe). A temporary mistake (a 'miswriting', as we might say a
misunderstanding) which a gesture will scatter into so much white dust?
But even this is only the least of the uncertainties. Here are some others: there
are two pipes. Or rather two drawings of one pipe? Or else a pipe and its drawing, or
else two drawings each representing a pipe, or else two drawings one of which
represents a pipe but not the other, or else two drawings neither one of which is or
represents a pipe? And now I catch myself confusing be and represent as if they were
equivalent, as if a drawing were what it represents; and I also see that if I had (and I
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w. .eo. .., ,
.:. a2
Cr4
= . . .. o *..
Cec.? oO e
, - al om o -
._
__
FI \\\/ "!7 _7oomt "o
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_..._
8
OCTOBER
have)
to
diss
for
over
thr
return
to
all
But
this
str
painted
canv
space
with
vi
edges
of
the
f
grooves
of
th
no
coordinat
converse
eff
confined
with
framed
pictur
an
emanation
pipe
smoke
resembling
t
the
Battle
of
not
even
sup
gigantic
tha
dimension
br
space
hencefo
I
am,
howeve
quite
doubtf
up
above
and
feet
of
this
e
resting
on
a
f
their
contact
rather
massiv
frame,
the
ca
in
fragments
be
reconstru
neither
meas
immobility?
II. The Broken Calligram
Magritte's drawing (I am speaking for the moment only o
as simple as a page taken from a botany handbook: a fig
labels it. Nothing easier to recognize than a pipe, drawn l
language has an expression which acknowledges the f
pipe!" Yet what constitutes the strangeness of this figure
tion' between the image and the text, and for a good re
exist only between two statements, or within one and th
see that there is only one statement and that it cannot be
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"Ceci
n'est
pas
une
pipe"
9
subject of the proposition is a si
seriously contend that this patch
is confusing is that we inevitably
tive
suggests,
as
well
as
the
meanin
image), and the fact that it is im
that the assertion is true, false, c
I cannot get rid of the idea t
invisible by the simplicity of
uneasiness it provokes. This opera
and then carefully undone. Each
and their relation derives from
In its age-old tradition, the call
alphabet; to repeat without the a
double graphic form. First it br
other: it composes into lines w
constitute the succession of lette
figure, and makes the text say w
alphabetizes the ideogram, popul
makes the silence of the uninterr
writing in a space which no long
inert whiteness of paper; its task
simultaneous form. It reduces ph
no more than a gray murmur w
makes drawing into a thin envelo
from word to word, the unwindi
The
calligram
Rhetoric
saying
exploits
the
same
is
therefore
the
things
a
superabund
twice
in
dif
allows us to say two different th
rhetoric is allegory. The calligram
function as linear elements whic
must be read according to a sing
permits us to establish words; as
calligram playfully seeks to er
civilization: to show and to nam
articulate; to imitate and to signi
Pursuing twice over the thing
double access guarantees a capture
capable.
It
prevail by
space, the
signs
undermines
summon
silhouette
the
inv
imposing on them, thr
visible form of their
of
from
their
elsewhere
mass
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on
the
e
10
OCTOBER
they
speak.
A
the
words
w
nameless
pre
establish
it
i
are
they
now
streaming
ra
And
now,
M
broken
callig
the
calligram
disturb
all
th
The
text
w
ideogram
is
where
it
serv
it,
inserting
becomes,
in
reascends
to
momentarily
floating
in
i
distribution
drawing
are
painter
has
unassignable)
attribute
to
state
as
a
dra
they
are,
on
this
is
not
a
the
same
han
writing
mor
imagine
it
fi
scattered
ove
The
invisibl
drawing;
and
figure
should
drawn
repres
The
same
a
graphic
dupl
sufficiently
and
undernea
compared
to
cal.
It
undert
well
known,
t
the
name,
he
this
strange
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"Ceci
things
n'est
twice
pas
une
over
pipe"
(where
11
only
once
w
without seeming to, introduces a n
it says; for by drawing a bouquet,
letters, the calligram never says of
dove,
a
graphic
silence
flower,
signs
of
the
a
shower
draws.
letters;
To
of
show
not
to
rain
what
say
wha
and frame it. Now that Magritte h
must repossess, for its own sake, t
syntax, a negation. The 'not sayin
calligram is now spoken from out
because of this calligram hidden b
pipe is enabled to say several thin
"This" (this drawing you see and
not" (is not substantially linked to
same
substance
as
...)
"a
pipe"
(w
language, consisting of sounds you
now reading translate: This is not
W'est
pas
/
une
pipe
But at the same time, this same
(this statement which you see arra
elements, and of which this is bo
(cannot be equivalent to nor substi
pipe" (one of those objects of whi
figure, interchangeable, anonymo
must read:
I coed.. . I l n'est pas
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12
OCTOBER
Now,
it
read
statement
is
t
of
the
text
by
coincide,
exce
group,
and
wh
their
present
group
constitu
incompatible
discourse
and
visual
interpl
Ceci n'est pas e pipe
/ ceci n'est pas une pip
Third disturbance: Magritte has reop
what it was speaking about. But the ob
accustomed to pay attention to that narr
book which runs above the words and un
a common frontier for their incessant
millimeters of whiteness, on the calm
designation, nomination, description,
shapes. The calligram has reabsorbed t
calligram does not restore it; the trap ha
fall apart, each according to its respe
common space, any place of intersect
images enter into a lexical order. The
Magritte's drawing separates figure fro
and misty region which now separates
the terrestrial march of the words succe
much to say that there is a void or a l
erasure of 'common ground' between the
The "pipe" which was undivided betw
drawing which would figure it, that sh
of shape and the fiber of words, has f
other side of the gaping hole, the text
now solitary drawing of the pipe may tr
usually designates; the text may unfur
fidelity of a legend in a textbook: all
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"Ceci
n'est
formulation
drawing
and
pas
une
of
their
the
pipe"
13
divorce,
reference
of
the
the
tex
From this point on, we can unde
pipe. By placing the drawing of t
legend on the very clearly delimi
letters are only the image of letter
didactic continuation of a discour
tripod, Magritte does all that is ne
ness of a work of art, or by the
common to image and language. B
which Magritte had so carefully j
along with the text inside the ins
board,
between
has
the
now
text
escaped:
and
the
it
is
figure
up
of
w
of convergence on the horizon, on
absence-as if it were merely the u
beveled and so obviously unstable
break, the picture and the pipe ro
ground-a
banal
work
of
art
or
an
III. Klee, Kandinsky, Magritte
Two principles have governed Western Painting, I believe, from the
the 20th century.
The first separates plastic representation (which implies resemblan
linguistic representation (which excludes it). This distinction is arti
such a way as to permit one or another form of subordination: either th
governed by the image (as in those paintings in which a book, an inscr
letter, a person's name are represented); or else the image is governed by the
in the books where drawing completes, as if it were merely taking a s
what the words are intended to represent). It is true that this subordinati
remains stable: for the text of a book may be only a commentary on the
the successive route, by means of the words, of its simultaneous form
painting may be dominated by a text of which it produces, plastically,
significations. But the form of the subordination or the manner in wh
extended, increased, and inverted matters little; the essential thing is
verbal sign and the visual representation are never given at the same tim
are always hierarchically ordered, and it is the sovereignty of this princi
Klee abolished by emphasizing in an uncertain, reversible, floating spac
page and canvas, sheet and volume, graph-paper and survey report, sto
map) the juxtaposition of figures and the syntax of signs. In the interlaci
and the same fabric he presents the two systems of representation: whereby
the calligraphers who reinforced, by multiplying it, the interplay of r
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14
OCTOBER
subordinations
one.
The second principle proposes the equivalence between th
and the affirmation of a representative link. That a figure s
(or some other figure), that there should be a relation of an
sufficient to assert in all our painting an obvious, banal, th
and yet almost always silent statement (it is like an endles
which surrounds the figures' silence, invades it, seizes, dis
shifts it into the realm of things we can name): "What you
the direction in which the relation of representation funct
tance whether the painting is referred to the visible worl
whether it creates for itself alone an invisible world which resembles it. The
essential thing is that we cannot dissociate similitude and affirmation. Kandin
delivered painting from this equivalence: not that he dissociated its terms, b
because he simultaneously got rid of resemblance and representative function
No one, it would seem, is further from Kandinsky and from Klee th
Magritte, whose painting is so attached to the exactitude of resemblances that
deliberately multiplies them as though to confirm them: it is not enough that
pipe should resemble, in the drawing itself, another pipe, which in its turn,
... More than any other, Magritte's painting is determined to separate, delib
ately, cruelly, the graphic element and the plastic element: if they should hap
to be superimposed like a legend and its image, it is on condition that t
statement contest the figure's manifest identity and the name we are about to
it. And yet Magritte's painting is not alien to the enterprise of Klee and Kandinsky
it constitutes, rather, starting from a system common to them, a figure at o
contrary and complementary.
IV. The Mute Labor of Words
The exteriority of the graphic and the plastic elements, so
Magritte, is symbolized by the non-relation--or in any case by the
and very hidden relation--between the picture and its title. T
distance, which keeps us from being able to be, at one and the same
and spectator, assures the abrupt emergence of the image above the
of the words. "The titles are chosen in order to keep others from
pictures in a familiar region which the automatism of thought wo
invoke in order to avoid anxiety." Magritte names his paintings in order to
preserve respect for denomination (a little like the anonymous hand which has
designated the pipe by the statement "This is not a pipe"). And yet in this broken
and drifting space, strange relations are formed, intrusions occur, sudden destructive invasions, the fall of images among words, verbal explosions which crack the
drawings and smash them to pieces. Patiently, Klee constructs a space without
name or geometry by intertwining the chain of signs and the network of figures.
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"Ceci
n'est
Whereas
pas.
une
Magritte
traditional
pipe"
secretly
15
undermi
arrangement.
But
he
perspective is no more than a mole
Even the most docile drawing r
pipe" to make the figure immediate
until it begins to float, near or fa
different from itself. The converse
In a landscape that suggests either t
chia, two tiny characters are speaki
ately caught up in the silence of th
blocks overhangs the two mute cha
upon another, form at their base a
decipher as the word REVE (dream
received the power to organize the
behind the waking yet immediately
silence and their sleep,'compose a w
erase;
yet
this
word
designates
the
mo
is in a dream that the men, finally
signification of things, and that t
enigmatic, insistent words which c
incision of discourse in the form o
to double; The art of conversation i
form their own words in men's ind
upon their everyday chatter.
Between these two extremes, Mag
and of images. The face of an abso
without blinking an eye, 'bursts' in
one hears, and which comes from n
breaking a windowpane whose frag
their jagged surfaces, strew the fl
disappearance of the sun 'a fall' have
other sun which has been drawn li
surface. Like a tongue in a bell, th
makes
is
the
what
objects,
familiar
Magritte
and
expression
himself
specify
ring
says:
certain
th
"We
chara
ignored in everyday life." And furt
an image. A word can take the place
place of a word in a proposition." A
refers both to the inextricable netw
common ground which might sust
same
substance
differently."
as
the
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images.
We
16
OCTOBER
Let
there
b
principle
of
seemed
to
b
the
arbitrar
tiously
reap
meticulous
r
Klee
wove,
Magritte
for
it
is
allo
no
m
is
nothing.
I
have
marked
hidden
unde
rises
to
its
s
version
of
characters
o
between
the
living
bodies
faces
about
there
where
V. The Seven Seals of Affirmation
The old equivalence between similitude and affirmation was thus dismissed
by Kandinsky in a unique and sovereign gesture; he freed painting from the one as
from the other. Magritte, however, proceeds by dissociation: to break their links, to
establish their inequality, to make each function without the other, to maintain
the one which derives from painting itself and to exclude the one which is closest
to discourse; to pursue as far as is possible the infinite continuation of resemblances, but to free it from any affirmation which would undertake to say what
they resemble. Painting of the 'same', freed from 'as if'. It is the converse of
trompe-l'oeil, which seeks to pass off the heaviest burden of affirmation by a
convincing resemblance: "What you see here is not, on the surface of a wall, an
arrangement of lines and colors; it is a depth, a sky, clouds which have drawn back
the curtain of your roof, a real column around which you can turn, a staircase
which continues the steps you are taking (and already you take a step toward it, in
spite of yourself), a stone balustrade over which are leaning toward you the
attentive faces of ladies and courtiers, wearing the same clothes, the same ribbons
as yourself, smiling at your astonishment and your smiles, making signs to you
which seem mysterious only because they have already answered those you are
about to make to them."
So many affirmations, supported by so many analogies, are opposed by
Magritte's text which speaks right next to the most lifelike pipe in the world. Bu
who is speaking, in this unique text in which the most elementary of affirmation
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"Ceci
n'est
pas
une
pipe"
17
is dismissed? The pipe itself, first
form or which form me, all this
drawing,
while
the
real
pipe,
resting
floating in the element of its idea
in which I am no more than a sim
pipe up above replies (still in the s
your eyes, outside of space, and w
neither on a canvas nor on a pa
mistake, I am merely a similitud
resemblance which, without refer
texts like the one you can read an
down below." But the statement, al
speaks for itself in its turn: "Thes
expect when you start reading th
letters dare say they are a pipe, bein
system which resembles only itse
speaking about." There is still mor
the third element, that "this is no
blackboard which surrounds them
complicity: the words' power of d
denounce the pipe up above and de
to call itself a pipe, for its unatta
Linked by their reciprocal similitude
statement to call itself a pipe, sin
what they designate. Linked by th
one
is
a
discourse
capable
of
spe
apparition of a thing-in-itself, th
assertion that the pipe in the fram
supposed that beyond these three
statement,
and
that
a
shapeless
simultaneously of the pipe of the
the text which it is actually in th
would say: "None of all this is a pi
of a pipe which resembles a dra
drawing) which resembles a pipe
would not be a drawing)." Seven k
required no less to raze the fort
affirmation.
Henceforth, similitude is referred to itself-extended out from itself and
folded back on itself. It is no longer the index which perpendicularly crosses the
canvas surface in order to refer to something else. It inaugurates a play of
analogies which run, proliferate, propagate, and correspond within the picture
plane, without affirming or representing anything. Which accounts for those
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18
OCTOBER
infinite
inter
outside
the
pi
plant
whose
l
themselves,
t
Graces,
The
T
which
femini
the
plastic
ele
analogy
which
the
playful
in
has
the
powe
regularly
inc
slice
guarant
proportionals
the
head
(the
Another
way
representativ
contrary
of
w
appearance,
th
an
affirmatio
canvas
and
wh
painting
to
t
overflow
from
Human Condition where the sea's horizon continues without a break with the
horizon on the canvas); or by inversion of distances (as in The Waterfall where th
model advances on the canvas, envelops it on the sides, and makes it seem farthe
back in relation to what should be behind it). Conversely to this analogy which
denies representation by effacing duality and distance, there is the opposite on
which evades or mocks representation by means of the snares of doubling. In
Evening Falls, the windowpane bears a red sun analogous to the one which remain
fixed in the heavens (so much, then, contra Descartes and his way of resolving th
two suns of appearance into the unity of representation); the contrary occurs in The
Field Glass: on the transparence of a windowpane we see clouds passing and a blue
sea sparkling; but the gap between the casements reveals a black space: what we se
on the glass is a reflection of nothing at all.
VI. To Paint Is Not to Affirm
Rigorous separation between linguistic signs and plastic elements;
lence of similitude and affirmation. These two principles constituted the
classical painting: for the second one reintroduced discourse (there is af
only where there is speech) in a painting from which the linguistic e
carefully excluded. Whence the fact that classical painting spoke-a
great deal-even as it constituted itself outside language; whence the fa
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"Ceci
n'est
pas
une
pipe"
19
rested
silently upon a discursive space
underneath itself, a kind of commo
image and signs.
Magritte joins verbal signs and p
previous isotopism; he evades the b
blance calmly rested; and he brings
verbal statements in the instability
without
planes.
An
operation
of
formulary.
1. To devise a calligram in which
image, text, resemblance, affirmati
2. Then to break the calligram so that it immediately decomposes and
disappears, leaving only its own void as its trace.
3. To let the discourse fall of its own weight and acquire the visible form of
letters. Letters which, insofar as they are drawn, enter into an uncertain, indefinite
relation, intertwined with the drawing itself -but without any surface being able to
serve as their common ground.
4. To permit, elsewhere, the similitudes to multiply out of themselves, to
generate from their own vapor and rise endlessly in a less and less spatialized ether
where they refer to nothing but themselves.
5. To make sure, at the end of the operation, that the precipitate of the last
test-tube has changed color, that it has turned from white to black, that This is a
pipe has indeed become This is not a pipe. In short, that painting has ceased to
affirm.
1963
Two Letters from Renek Magritte to Michel Foucault
May 23, 1966
Dear Sir:
You will, I hope, be pleased to consider some reflections elicited by a readin
of your book The Order of Things (Les Mots et les choses) ...
The words Resemblance and Similitude allow you to suggest most forcefully
the-absolutely alien-presence of the world and of ourselves. However, I think
that these two words are inadequately differentiated; the dictionaries are anythi
but instructive as to their distinction.
It seems to me, for example, that peas have relations of similitude, both visible
(their color, their shape, their size) and invisible (their nature, their taste, their
weight). The same is true of the false and the authentic, etc. 'Things' have no
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20
OCTOBER
resemblances
It
is
only
th
understands
It
is
quite
as
intervene:
th
visibly.
Las
M
the
invisible
visible
In
figure
this
rega
nature-conc
another
visib
There
has
be
result of a confused literature whose interest vanishes if we recall that what is visible
can be concealed, but that what is invisible conceals nothing: it can be known or
unknown, no more. There is no reason to grant the invisible more importance than
the visible, nor the converse.
What does not 'lack' importance is the mystery evoked in fact by the visible and
the invisible, and which can be evoked potentially by the thought which unites
'things' in the order which evokes mystery.
I am taking the liberty of calling to your attention the enclosed reproductions
of works I painted without concerning myself with an original investigation of
painting.
Please accept . . etc.
Rene Magritte.
June 4, 1966
Dear Sir,
... Your question (about my painting Perspective, The Balcony by Manet)
asks what it already contains: what made me see coffins where Manet saw white
figures, is the image shown by my painting in which the setting of the "Balcony"
was suitable for the placing of coffins.
The 'mechanism' which functioned here might serve as the object of a learned
explanation of which I am quite incapable. This explanation would be valid, even
irrefutable, but it would still be no less of a mystery.
The first painting entitled Perspective was a coffin resting on a stone in a
landscape.
The Balcony is a variation on this, there were others previously: Perspective.
Mmne. Recamier by David and Perspective. Mmne. Rk&camier by Gerard. A variation
with, for instance, the setting and figures of Courbet's Burial at Ornans would be
more of a parody.
I believe it should be noted that these paintings named "Perspective" offer a
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"Ceci
n'est
pas
une
pipe"
21
meaning which the two senses of the
the others have a precise meaning in
better than anyone in The Order of
except for the mind which imagines
I am glad that you recognize a rese
think which deserves to be thought.
he evokes the reality of the world wh
sion.
I hope to have the opportunity to meet you during my exhibition in Paris, at
the Iolas Gallery, toward the end of the year.
Please accept ... etc.
Rene Magritte.
l0& iA.A
raoot?
dalL IrJA
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