I first learned about René Magritte in university.

“The Treachery Of Images”

I cannot possibly remember the debate I had about it, before I was twenty, in some windowless room in the basement of a structure made entirely of concrete and shaped exactly like four harmonicas on stilts. I can say, though, I did not forget the image and the idea that images of things are not the same as things themselves.

The levels of abstraction, especially if you add the layer of language and the assignation of “words” to objects represented in images, could go on forever but the larger point here is that I had never seen or experienced the weight of Magritte’s work on “The Treachery Of Images” until I spent over 20 minutes trying to explain to my near inconsolable under two year-old that, no, he could not play with the six beach balls depicted on one of his educational flash cards.

He kept bending the card to try to get the balls off, handing it to me so I could get the balls off for him. He really, really wanted to play with those beach balls. And, as I held him and consoled him I kept thinking, “Ceci n’est pas une balle, ceci n’est pas une balle, ceci n’est pas une balle…”

I’m so sorry, my sweet baby, but images are treacherous and that is not a ball.

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“La Trahison des Images” By René Magritte, 1898-1967.
The work is now owned by and exhibited at LACMA.
COPIED FROM WIKIPEDIA