Introduction
French artist René Magritte painted The Treason of Images (sometimes, The Treachery of Images) in 1928–29. You’re familiar: It’s a painting of a pipe with the subtitle, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”). Occasionally the painting even goes by this name.
It’s been mimicked, mocked, and copied ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Magritte’s philosophy behind the painting was the image is not the object: The image is a symbol or representation of the object itself. You can’t stuff the painting with tobacco.
What a perfect title to such a groundbreaking artistic statement, The Treason of Images.
Margritte regarded French philosopher, Michel Foucault, with esteem and the two kept in touch. Foucault wrote of the artwork,
From painting to image, from image to text, from text to voice, a sort of imaginary pointer indicates, shows, fixes, locates, imposes a system of references, tries to stabilize a unique space. But why have we introduced this teacher’s voice? Because scarcely has he stated, “This is a pipe,” before he must correct himself and stutter, “This is not a pipe, but a drawing of a pipe,” “This is not a pipe but a sentence saying that this is not a pipe,” “The sentence ‘this is not a pipe,’ this is a not a pipe: the painting, written sentence, drawing of a pipe — all of this is not a pipe.”
This is semiotics. This is reframing our understanding of communication about a referenced idea rather than a referenced object.
So… what is semiotics?
Defining semiotics is not terribly difficult. It is simply a study of signs and symbols and their interpretation or use; it is how meaning is created and how meaning is communicated; semiotics is meaning-making. It is the connection between what exists, what we know it as, and how we address it. (There are innumerable branches and fields within the broader study of semiotics.) Defining semiotics is not terribly difficult… right?
