This Is Not A Bear

Between October 1927 and 1931 René Magritte painted a total of forty-two paintings in which words appear, sometimes alone, sometimes in conjunction with other objects or with abstract shapes. The Treachery of Images - in which a pipe appears with the words 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' written beneath - represents the culmination of these word paintings.

Picking up on the ideas behind 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' this Glanside picture 'This is not a bear' expresses two important ideas: the obvious statement that this is an illustration of a bear and a toy bear, and not a real bear: the second, the demonstration that the power of resemblance, defined as 'thought' by Magritte, overrides all other processes of signification, and constitutes the most powerful and potentially disruptive mode of thinking.

About this artwork

There are a wide range of creative techniques that involve the exclusive use of image and illustration, taking advantage of different pathways in the brain with the potential to generate highly creative work.

Worked examples of text and image-based creative thinking techniques can be found at Glanside Creative Techniques