{"id":605,"date":"2016-02-28T15:05:13","date_gmt":"2016-02-28T22:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/?p=605"},"modified":"2016-02-28T15:05:50","modified_gmt":"2016-02-28T22:05:50","slug":"john-berger-and-rene-magritte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/2016\/02\/28\/john-berger-and-rene-magritte\/","title":{"rendered":"John Berger and Ren\u00e9 Magritte"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It seems odd that in our many discussions regarding John Berger\u2019s art criticisms in<i> Ways of Seeing<\/i>, we never discussed the most immediate visual in the book: the cover. It is a painting by the Belgian artist Ren\u00e9 Magritte, and the fact that Berger chooses a work by Magritte is rather unexpected \u2014 given the philosophical beliefs of the artist.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The oil painting <i>The Treachery of Images<\/i> is arguably Magritte\u2019s most well known painting. The visual depicts a realistic pipe accompanied by the words \u201cCeci n\u2019est pas une pipe\u201d (This is not a pipe). While the painting and the subtitle initially seem to be contradictory, it slowly becomes apparent that it is not: Magritte has created an image of a pipe, and not a physical pipe itself. The relation between visual and text of <i>The Treachery of Images expresses<\/i> Magritte\u2019s belief that even the most realistic of images would never be able to accurately capture an object. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Berger claims in <i>Ways of Seeing<\/i> that \u201cwhat distinguishes oil painting from any other form of painting is its special ability to render tangibility \u2026[and] although its painted images are two-dimensional \u2026 [its realism can fill] a space and, by implication, fill the entire world\u201d (89). This claim that oil painting is a medium that allows for close representation of reality is one Magritte would agree with. However, the claim that it can \u201cfill the entire world\u201d with suggestions of physical objects would not be taken well by the Belgian painter (89). In this specific instance, Berger argues that oil painting is a depiction of objects which is realistic to a point of great symbolic value, while the man who created the image on the cover believes that there will always be a significant gap between an image and the object it depicts.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_606\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/files\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-28-at-2.03.06-PM.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-606\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-606\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-606\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/files\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-28-at-2.03.06-PM-300x196.png\" alt=\"Ren\u00e9 Magritte's painting The Treachery of Images.\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/files\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-28-at-2.03.06-PM-300x196.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/files\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-28-at-2.03.06-PM.png 712w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-606\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ren\u00e9 Magritte&#8217;s painting The Treachery of Images.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It seems odd that in our many discussions regarding John Berger\u2019s art criticisms in Ways of Seeing, we never discussed the most immediate visual in the book: the cover. It is a painting by the Belgian artist Ren\u00e9 Magritte, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/2016\/02\/28\/john-berger-and-rene-magritte\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":608,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions\/608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}