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Rene Magritte ~ “Not to be Reproduced”, 1937

The image of the man standing in front of a mirror, who - surprisingly - sees nothing but his own backside, was one of Rene Magritte’s strangest creations. This unnatural situation suggests a deeper meaning of the title: ‘Reproduction interdite’ (Not to be Reproduced). Especially considering that upon closer inspection, the book in front of the mirror happens to be the French copy of ‘The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym’ by Edgar Allan Poe and this is the only complete novel that he ever wrote.

Poe’s novel (first published in 1837, exactly 100 years before the painting) deals in various ways with perceptions of reality, reflexivity and self-reflexivity which is a common theme with Magritte’s work. The book is Arthur Gordon Pym’s eyewitness account of his adventurous journey to the South Pole. Pym repeatedly emphasizes that he is the “real author of the book” and not that ‘Mr. Poe’, as some people seem to think. The latter is really only the editor of the work. Pym is particularly annoyed at this because he fears that his travelogue will be categorized ‘under the garb of fiction’. Likewise, Magritte plays with the conventions of what a painting should look like. We are looking at a portrait of his friend and patron Edward James, but we can’t see his face.

What Magritte’s affinity with Poe was exactly, we will never know for sure, but his novel occupies a special status in this painting: it is the only object which is correctly reflected in the mirror and ironically, the only object faithfully “reproduced” <source>