This Is Not A Pipe
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What does it mean for a painting to say something, and can an image ever truly represent the thing it depicts? In This Is Not a Pipe, Michel Foucault dissects René Magritte's iconic 1929 surrealist painting — a meticulously rendered pipe beneath the paradoxical caption Ceci n'est pas une pipe — to unravel the complex, often fractured relationship between words, images, and the objects they claim to represent. Drawing on a fascinating personal correspondence with Magritte himself, Foucault argues that the painting stages a radical rupture in the classical system of resemblance, forcing the viewer to confront the fundamental instability at the heart of all representation. Translated and edited by James Harkness, this compact yet intellectually commanding essay stands as a landmark text at the intersection of philosophy, art theory, and semiotics. Foucault's characteristically incisive prose dismantles the comfortable assumption that language and image operate in harmony, revealing instead a perpetual tension where neither can fully anchor meaning. Scholarly yet accessible, the work illuminates broader questions about how human perception and culture construct reality, and leaves the reader asking — if this is not a pipe, then what, precisely, is it?
Author: Michel Foucault
Format: Paperback
Genre: Philosophy
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What does it mean for a painting to say something, and can an image ever truly represent the thing it depicts? In This Is Not a Pipe, Michel Foucault dissects René Magritte's iconic 1929 surrealist painting — a meticulously rendered pipe beneath the paradoxical caption Ceci n'est pas une pipe — to unravel the complex, often fractured relationship between words, images, and the objects they claim to represent. Drawing on a fascinating personal correspondence with Magritte himself, Foucault argues that the painting stages a radical rupture in the classical system of resemblance, forcing the viewer to confront the fundamental instability at the heart of all representation. Translated and edited by James Harkness, this compact yet intellectually commanding essay stands as a landmark text at the intersection of philosophy, art theory, and semiotics. Foucault's characteristically incisive prose dismantles the comfortable assumption that language and image operate in harmony, revealing instead a perpetual tension where neither can fully anchor meaning. Scholarly yet accessible, the work illuminates broader questions about how human perception and culture construct reality, and leaves the reader asking — if this is not a pipe, then what, precisely, is it?