Magritte: Artistic and Conceptual Representation

Author(s): Petra von Morstein

Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , Summer, 1983, Vol. 41, No. 4
(Summer, 1983), pp. 369-374
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/429871

REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.com/stable/429871?seq=1&cid=pdf-
reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Wiley and The American Society for Aesthetics are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

This content downloaded from

129.199.59.249 on Mon, 19 Jun 2023 11:19:54 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 PETRA VON MORSTEIN

Magritte: Artistic and

Conceptual Representation

IN GENERAIL, representational this component

relations aremust, further, be non-
established by an agent for a purpose. The
stereotype, and it must, in the pattern of the
representing object is made to refer kind of toexperience
the represented, outweigh
represented object, such that the reference
those components of the kind of experience
is a function of the purpose for which
which the
are describable. The underlying as-
relation has been established. Its reference sumption is that every experience has a
has the same duration as the repre- non-conceptualizable component: what it
sentational relation; both cease as soon as feels like to me to have experience E, the
the purpose is fulfilled or abandoned. component in virtue of which an experi-
Thus, a representing object is a sec- ence of mine is necessarily mine, the strictly
ondary object. This does not appear com-unique, "private" component which neces-
patible with the historically weathered viewsarily eludes conceptualization; artistic rep-
that artworks are autonomous (primary),resentation essentially though not exclu-
self-contained, timeless and purpose- sively, consists in showing what cannot be
free,-as well as representational. said; and in detaching subjectivity from
However, the following sketch1 of an ac- particular subjects. I call the subset of uni-
count of artistic representation which leansversals represented by art "intensional uni-
upon Aristotle's arguments regarding the versals." They are epistemically accessible
poet's (as opposed to the philosopher's) only as represented by art, not indepen-
concern with universal truths dissolves this dently and not by description or analysis.
appearance and will allow us to hold the They cannot be independently identified as
view that, necessarily, a work of art is botha term in an artistic representational rela-
representational and autonomous. In what tion; therefore a work of art is a primary
follows I shall distinguish between artistic,object.2
referential, and conceptual representation, Artistic representation is necessary for
and discuss, with regard to a set of Ma- something to be a work of art. However, a
gritte's works, how the two latter can be statement that this condition is fulfilled
aspects of the first. eludes verification procedures because of
1. Artistic Representation: A work of art the epistemic inaccessibility of what is rep-
represents a kind of experience (cp. Aristo- resented.
tle's notion of a "kind of action," e.g., inPoe- 2. Referential Representation: Referential
tics, Chs. 6-9), i.e. a universal. The kinds ofrepresentation is compatible with, but not
experience represented by art include, of necessary for something's being a work of
course, the component of subjectivity, but art. In painting, portraits (and self-
detached from individuals and actual oc- portraits) are paradigmatic cases of ref-
currences. For something to be art the uni- erential representation, but landscapes can
versal represented must belong to a subset also fall into this class (e.g. Constable's
of universals, a subset not just in virtue of Wivenhoe Park, Cezanne's Mt. Ste. Victoire
the inclusion of the subjective component: paintings).
For a painting to be referentially repre-
PETRA VON MORSTEIN is professor of philosophy at the sentational is to be or to contain a picture of
University of Calgary. a particular (or a set of particulars) which is

This content downloaded from

129.199.59.249 on Mon, 19 Jun 2023 11:19:54 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 370 VON MORSTEIN

or was independently indentifiable. Ref- of Rene Magritte's

features of the majority
erential representation through a paint-
works. However, the way conceptual repre-
ing's detail can be a feature of isthe
sentation whole
tied into the artistic context in
painting's being artistically represen- the case of Magritte does not exclude alter-
tational. The degree of similarity between native ways for paintings in a larger set.
the terms of a referentially representational Thus, the level of generality of any further
relation in the context of artistic repre-results presented in this essay is to be taken
sentation must be a function of the kind of as limited to Magritte, or even only to the
experience artistically represented. A pic- small set of works discussed. The discussion
ture that is not artistically, but only ref- will have to involve some peculiar cases of
erentially representational (e.g. a typical referential representation.
passport photograph) must be a "good It is true, though certainly not exhaustive
likeness" by prevailing common standards. to say that (many of) Magritte's paintings
Referential representation in an artistic are pictures of objects (rocks, eggs, trees,
context points to independently indentifi- tubas, bowler hats) according to completely
able particulars which may constitute in- common standard ways of perceiving. This,
tentional objects for the kind of experienceat least primafacie, makes it implausible that
artistically represented. Their identifiabil- the details of Magritte's paintings refer to
ity in principle, however, does not entail the individual particulars, and intuitively
dependence of the art work on their iden- tempting to dismiss the possibility of
tification; otherwise artistic portraits of acccounting for the "details" of Magritte's
people dead could not be intelligible. Ref- paintings as exemplifying referential
erential representation is compatible with representation.
the logical primacy and autonomy of works The Use of Words I (1928-29) has two
of art. major details: a picture of a pipe, and the
Paintings, or details of a painting, for inscription "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." As-
which models have been used (e.g. Boticel-suming that the above primafacie hypothesis
li's Primavera), are not referentially repre-
is correct there is one referential device
sentational by the above account. which does occur in the picture: the de-
3. Conceptual Representation: Conceptual monstrative term "ceci." Of course, as the
representation can also, but need not be, a picture of a pipe is not a pipe the sentence
feature in a context of artistic representa-may not be a sentence, but a picture of a
tion. sentence. Assuming, however, that the
A picture or detail of a picture, repre- sentence incorporates a statement then it is
sents conceptually if it depicts an object not intuitively plausible, though no more than
as a particular individual, but as the schema that, to assume that it is a statement about
of an object according to the prevailing the picture of the pipe. It is trivially true
rules that guide the employment of a that the picture of a pipe is not a pipe, and
concept, i.e. the subsumption of particulars it's probably not the whole point of the
under it. Such a depiction is, as it were, a sentence to draw our attention to this truth.
map of a concept. May it here suffice to say The pipe picture is in accordance with a
that the difference between referential and mental set governed by conventions for see-
conceptual representation is to be under- ing a pipe which are so common and stand-
stood in terms of the difference between, ard that the picture appears liberated from
respectively, individual and universal es- intentionality to the utmost possible degree.
sences. Pictures in mushroom guides and It is a picture according to a way of ex-
botany books, maps, drawings of molecular periencing pipes, but the way of experienc-
structures provide cases of conceptual rep- ing is so stereotyped that the intentional
resentation. Such pictures are, of course, component of the experience ceases to be of
not works of art. interest, drops out of interest and consider-
The main interest of this essay is in ation as irrelevant. It is not a picture of any
examples of artistic representation in con- particular pipe, but it is a picture of what
nection with conceptual representation. pipes look like to common observers in
This connection is one of the characteristic standard conditions-the conditions being

This content downloaded from

129.199.59.249 on Mon, 19 Jun 2023 11:19:54 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Artistic and Conceptual Representation 371

so purely in accordance with common looks to a common observer under stan-

standards that they are liberated from dard conditions: the intentional object, is,
other related, more or less common expe- we may say, a kind of experience, namely
riential contexts. It is not a picture of a pipethe most stereotype kind of experience of a
being smoked, it is not a picture of a pipe pipe. The intentional object is not a particu-
held in someone's hand, contained in a lar outside the picture and referred to by a
pouch, anywhere near tobacco. The depic- detail of the picture, nor is it a particular
tion is liberated even from the major within pur- the virtual space of the picture.3
pose of pipes which goes to show that Thus it is the painting as a whole artistically
liberated from intentionality consistently represents a non-standard kind of experi-
since the purpose of pipes cannot be liber- ence of a stereotype kind of experience of
ated from intentionality. The pipe detail is a
pipes.
pipe schema,-a map, as it were, of the con- Like many of Magritte's paintings this
cept of a pipe. one shows and critically exposes a
So if the sentence does incorporate a stereotype way of experiencing. Stereotype
statement, this must be the nontrivial truth ways of experiencing are typically unself-
stated: The pipe detail does not represent aconscious ways of experiencing; their
particular pipe-nor does it represent a danger is that of a peculiar kind of illusion:
kind of experience in which the (or a) people who are in general given to ster-
pipe is the intentional object. This I con- eotype experiences rightly lack interest in
sider a paradigm case of conceptual the intentional component of such experi-
representation. ences, and may fall into the trap of taking
Like referential representation it relates objects as given independently from ex-
to "details" of such paintings which are ex periences. Magritte doesn't take objects as
hypothesi works of art. For cases of concep- given, but objects as experienced according
tual representation as tied with artistic rep- to stereotype conventions. What is given,
resentation, a detailreproduced would bejust are schemata or concepts. Magritte can be
like a text book illustration, which could not taken as making the point that we can liber-
allow any reference as to its artistic context, ate objects from intentionality only as
in principle. Correspondingly, to repro- stereotype intentional objects. There is an
duce a referentially representational detail obvious similarity in the ways in which
would not be to reproduce a partial work of Wittgenstein and Magritte react against
art either. Details of works of art are not what one may call the myth of the given.
necessarily themselves works of art. A traditional criterion for any pictorial
Assuming that the painting The Use of representation was similarity, a "good like-
Words I is a work of art and possesses inde- ness." Magritte uses this view in order to
structible unity, what, then, is the kind of reject it. Neither referential representation
experience, the intensional universal it rep- nor conceptual representation as tied into
resents? Strictly, this question is not legiti- artistic representation, can be said to rest on
mate just because for something to be a similarity; this has by now become obvious.
work of art it is necessary that it represents a
At least it cannot possibly be the extent and
kind of experience in which the subjective kind of similarity that would make it likely
nonconceptualizable component out- ever to mistake the represented for the rep-
weighs the conceptualizable components. resenting object. As to referential repre-
So with regard to one of its major con- sentation, the reasons for this have been
stituents, the kind of experience repre- sketched in the beginning of this essay. As
sented by a work of art eludes explication to conceptual representation the dissimilar-
and description which is why the above ity between the two terms is that between
question cannot possibly have a satisfactory members of two Rylean categories.
answer. But let us remember that (non-artistic)
But we can say something about the con- representation is tied to a purpose, and that
stitution of the kind of experience repre- the requirement of similarity, as well as of
sented by this painting: the intentional ob- duration, is a function of the purpose for
ject is not any one pipe, but the way a pipe which the representational relation was es-

This content downloaded from

129.199.59.249 on Mon, 19 Jun 2023 11:19:54 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 372 VO VN MORSTEIN

tablished, so that for the fulfillment of In the

The Two Mysteries (1966) the painting
purpose (and only for that) the represent-
The Use of Words I is depicted, as a detail, but
ing object can substitute for the not repre-
liberated from every intentional com-
sented object. Thus, for an explanatory ponent that one might envisage. Of course
purpose the schematic depiction of it a pipe
cannot conceptually represent, since it
cannot
may substitute for the concept of a pipe; for represent a schema of a stereotype
demonstrative purposes a picture ofkind Rem- of experience of this painting if it is a
brandt may (by way of referential repre-work of art; there is only one; and arguably
sentation) substitute for Rembrandt. This
it is strictly unique given that it represents a
general point holds of all representationkind of experience in which the non-
which is two-termed in such a way that both
conceptualizable component outweighs the
terms are independently epistemically ac-
conceptualizable ones. It is referentially
cessible. Even if a depiction is photographi-
represented, with (fairly obvious) contex-
cally realistic (as e.g. a Magrittean detail
tual of a
features, namely frame and easel. The
tree, or a rock, or an egg), we are deluded
sentence if "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" does not
we hold that there is more than minimal occur in The Two Mysteries, neither as a refer-
similarity between the picture and the de-
ential device (as a sentence with propo-
picted. Magritte emphasizes rather than sitional meaning) nor as a calligramme. The
contradicts this point when, for instance,
only referential device occurring in The Two
depictions of houses in his paintings are
Mysteries is the picture (as a detail) of the
much like photographs of the house in
(whole) painting The Use of Words I. The
Brussels he lived in, or when depictions of
other major detail of the painting is again a
men with bowler hats are much like photo-picture of a pipe, a clear case of conceptual
graphs of himself wearing a bowler hat. It isrepresentation. These two details are con-
an illusory similarity; the "real" similarity,
stitutive of the whole work and its unity
again, is minimal. even though their relation with each other
If the example discussed is typical we canmust be indeterminate in the context of
conclude that many of Magritte's paintings artistic representation. The conceptually
are among a subset of paintings which are representational detail is a picture of a pipe
works of art such that conceptual repre-
unsuspended and unsupported in virtual
sentation is essential to their being artisti-
space, as if it did not occupy any space at all;
cally representational,-just as referential
of course, that is consistent with conceptual
representation is essential to works of representation:
a a schema or concept cannot
different subset being artistically repre-occupy space. That this detail nonetheless
sentational. Magritte's works typically rep-
bears the signs of three-dimensionality is
resent (non-stereotype) kinds of experi- not just consistent with, but essential for, a
ences of (stereotype) kinds of experiences.
conceptual representation of a pipe.
Note, however, that the understandingIn The Use of Words I there is nothing to
of The Use of Words I accounted for here give
is rise to a temptation even to wonder
not exclusive of alternatives. As both about the location of a detail in a virtual
Foucault4 and Gablik5 point: Magritte's
space. (Nor is there in the referentially rep-
works incorporate problems which sys-
resentational detail of the framed picture
tematically, and not just for the reason con-
on the easel in The Two Mysteries.)
stituted by the nature of the artistic repre-
In another work, The Air and The Song
sentation, elude rule-bound solutions. (1964), there is no reference to The Use of
There is, for instance, no rule which enables
Words I, but an allusion to it. The major
us to decide what the demonstrative "ceci" detail is a peculiarly and elaborately framed
in "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" refers to (the
(with slices of biloquets?) picture. However,
indexical is not tied to any one description),the pipe in the center is not unequivocally
nor indeed whether what looks like a depicted within the framed picture: its bowl
sentence is a sentence. It could be a mere is filled with tobacco from which smoke
depiction of a sentence, a calligramme, as rises past and beyond the upper frame of
Foucault suggests. the inner picture. It can be taken as throw-

This content downloaded from

129.199.59.249 on Mon, 19 Jun 2023 11:19:54 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Artistic and Conceptual Representation 373

ing its shadow from outside on the painting dent on them. Reference depends on de-
in the painting. There are undecidable scription. Non-standard kinds of experi-
ways of thinking about the picture in the ences don't carry rules of demonstrative
picture. 1. The inner picture may have two reference with them. Our schemata, the
details: a pipe-shaped shadow, and a calli-standard conceptual patterns (and the re-
graphic inscription ("Ceci n'est pas une lated affinities of objects of experience) are
pipe") with a decorative design adorning itsboth displayed and rendered useless by
first letter. Accordingly, the outer pictureMagritte's paintings.
has two details: the inner picture, and a This applies in specific ways to Magritte's
pipe with tobacco and smoke. If they are paintings, and to works of art in general.
related to each other as details in a virtual More generally, it can be argued, it applies
space, the pipe is pictured as casting its to aesthetic experience. Remember Kant's
shadow on the inner picture. If they are not point: any object whatsoever can in princi-
related to each other in a virtual space, theple be an object of an aesthetic experience;
shadow is a detail of the inner picture, buthowever, to have an aesthetic experience is
not a shadow of the pipe detail of the outer to be completely liberated from any pur-
picture. 2. The inscription may be on the pose vis-a-vis the object of the experience,
outer or on the inner picture. Accordingly,including any cognitive purpose. Thus, to
the sentence, if it refers, may refer to the experience an object aesthetically is to ex-
shadow or to the pipe. 3. The outer picture perience beauty, that is, to be in a mental
has one detail: the inner picture which hasstate of total harmony of all the mental
the feature of one of its details being ex- faculties; according to Kant, this means that
tended onto the upper frame. We may be the object is not experienced as anything (it
teased with regard to the commonly held is not experienced under any conceptual
view that pictured pipes don't smoke. (Cp.heading). The object is an object of cogni-
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations tion only demonstratively (indexically), not
?297 ". . . What if one insisted on saying that descriptively. The beholder is, for the du-
there must also be something boiling in the ration of his aesthetic experience, liberated
picture of the pot?") from his relevant mental sets (whether
Given its contextual features which
stereotyped or not), he is, so to speak, pure
suggest an intentional component it is vis-a-vis the thing he observes.
tempting to think of the smoking pipe de- The liberation from any mental set is
tail as a case of referential representation. necessary for the experience of beauty if
But there is nothing that I can see that al- Kant is right. For something to be a work of
lows us to decide whether the pipe detail is art and for it to be experienced as a work of
referentially or conceptually represen- art it is necessary for the beholder to be
tational. That this is undecidable may be liberated from relevant stereotyped (com-
essential with regard to the kind of experi- mon) mental sets in order to understand
ence represented by the painting. More the kind of experience (represented by the
specifically, it may be systematically tied to work of art) which is determined by a dif-
the indeterminacy of reference of the in- ferent non-habitual (original, formerly un-
scription. Magritte brings home the point known) mental set. The work of art re-
that there are no rules of demonstrative ref- quires the beholder's liberation not from
erence, no (fully) analysable decision pro- all, but from stereotype mental sets (at least
cedures. (Cp. Wittgenstein on the problems for the duration of the experience of the
with ostensive definition6). Mental sets con- work of art as the work of art it is) for the
stituted by standard common conventions experience to be an experience of art. Any-
can, and by Magritte are shown to, collapse thing can be an object of an aesthetic ex-
through the systematic uncertainities of ref- perience, i.e., an object of beauty. For some-
erence (to the extent that it is indexical, and thing to be an object of art it must fulfill
not tied to a definite description.) The rules conditions independently of those that the
for mere referential representation are tied beholder must fulfill in order to be able to
to stereotyped mental sets, they are depen- have an experience of art. From Magritte

This content downloaded from

129.199.59.249 on Mon, 19 Jun 2023 11:19:54 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 374 VON MORSTEIN

we can take it that the beholder of a work of Any of his depictions of a pipe is a depiction
art is to be liberated from the (apparentlyaccording to our common standard concept
objective) rules which delusorily determine of a pipe. (Consider Gombrich's point, in
affinities among objects, references of signs
Art and Illusion: "All art is conceptual")7.
and pictures, and conceptual patterns and Any of his depictions of a tree is a depiction
connections. The kind of experience repre-according to our common concept of a tree.
sented by a work of art may be a causal Both a pipe picture and a tree picture occur
factor in this liberation, but it does not sup- in a 1966 work called The Shadows in which
ply the beholder with an alternative system behind a single tree in the foreground,
of rules in terms of which the new mental which fills the height of the picture, is de-
set (if that is still an appropriate term) couldpicted a pipe half as tall as the tree. All the
be analysed. The indeterminacy of refer- above holds regardless whether the repre-
ence, affinities, and conceptual patterns is sentations in detail are referential or con-
characteristic of the kinds of experiencesceptual. That they are combined and how
that Magritte's works represent and-one they are combined is not to be accounted
might understand him as holding-of the for in terms of any habitual rules, nor is it
kinds of experiences that any work of art possible to formulate alternative rules in
represents. order to account for this combination.
Magritte's works are causal factors in the
explosion of one major aspect of stereo-
typed mental sets. Sense-impressions com- 1 Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, Classical Literary
bined into perfectly recognizable objects Criticism, T. S. Dorsch, trans., (New York, 1965),
are left intact; in detail Magritte's works esp. chs. 6-9, (pp. 38-45), 15-17, (pp. 51-56), 25,
(pp. 69-74).
have the acribic precision of photographic 2 A more elaborate account in: Petra von Morstein,
realism. It is our stereotyped habits of com- "Universality, Unity, Uniqueness;" in British Journal of
bining objects rather than those of combin- Aesthetics, Vol. 22, (1982), 350-62.
ing sense-impressions that Magritte's works 3 S. K. Langer, Feeling and Form (New York, 1953),
esp. Chapter 5, pp. 69-85.
uproot. (Compare, for instance, the paint-
4 Michael Foucault, Ceci n'est pas une pipe (Monpel-
ings of Seurat which clearly uproot the lat- lier, 1973), passim.
ter and not, or not obviously, the former.) 5 Suzi Gablik, Magritte (London, 1970), e.g. chs. 7 &
Magritte leaves us our concepts (that of a 8, pp. 102-48.

tree, that of a hat, that of an egg. . .) but he 6 L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Ox-
ford University Press, 1974), e.g. ?? 1-38.
doesn't leave us our habitual connections
7 E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion. (Princeton Uni-
among them, our "conceptual geography." versity Press, 1969), p. 67.

This content downloaded from

129.199.59.249 on Mon, 19 Jun 2023 11:19:54 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms