Ceci n'est pas une pipe

What comes to mind when one thinks upon text in art? Particular artists? Particular artworks? In my mind Magritte comes forth. Ceci n'est pas une pipe. I encountered his work in a retrospective six years ago at the BA-CA Kunstforum in Vienna, Rene Magritte: Der Schluessel Der Traeume. Within it, I viewed a number of works dominated by text and remember being particularly taken by them, by what it meant that someone had used written language in art in this manner. Text in art was something I had not previously explored nor associated with Magritte past The Treachery of Images or Surrealism in general, for that matter. To me, painting was largely about the legibility of images. And yet The Treachery of Images tells us the image alone can be false or misleading. Indeed without the words this piece could possibly be the complete inverse of the meaning presented with words intact. This presents an argument for the use of text in art: accessibility of meaning.

So why do I find myself often reacting against it? Could Magritte not have simply provided any necessary text in the title of the works? Or, better yet, found a way to inscribe the meaning in an image alone? Was he just being lazy, or was the use of these two separate languages, that of imagery and that of text combined, the very point?

The aspect I wrestle with initially, when it comes to the use of text in art, is that I see the use of text as a schism with the pure language of imagery - imagery used alone. It’s not that I have anything against written language in itself. In fact language is something I am endlessly fascinated by, in many forms. It’s the mixing of text and image in painting that I am not entirely at ease with. It seems to make an easy route for an artist who cannot manage to convey his ideas through imagery alone. It seems to make an easy route for a viewer who cannot manage to read ideas in imagery alone. And so I find myself protective of imagery, as if of some sacred entity. As if entry into the legibility of imagery requires some sacred rite of passage. Which brings us closer to the crux of the matter: I enjoy that the meaning within a piece is guarded from plain view; I enjoy first encountering it and then unpacking it. I enjoy the nature of an encounter with an image as something that feels metaphysical compared with much of our other systematic interaction with the world. I enjoy that my rational mind is for this moment quieted. The use of text, a more commonly understood language, threatens that enjoyment; it threatens the entry point into an image as something intuitive by presenting a schematized entry point in a language we understand is read ‘left to right’. Instead, a unique, personal dialogue between artist and viewer is replaced by one more trivial, repetitive; having been had in exactly the same words, time and time again, by artist and passerby. That plane of existence where meaning is gained no longer seems otherworldly, the meaning no longer seems precious, just trite. The use of text threatens the traditional process of reading images, it opens up the image to a larger audience; one without the understanding of the specific language of imagery; it seems to deflate the meaning of art. And here I find myself on the argument against the use of text in art: the widened and altered access to meaning. 

Rene Magritte. The Treachery of Images, 1928/29. Oil on canvas.