Magritte was a key artist in the Surrealist movement, a literary, artistic, theatrical, and overall cultural movement of twentieth century that was founded by André Breton in 1924. The Surrealist movement’s goal was to express the unconscious mind, and these artists often experimented with automatic techniques to portray this state of subconsciousness. They were heavily influenced by the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud. Magritte was a part of the Belgian branch of Breton’s Surrealist group. The Belgian branch was characterized as being more practical than the other circles of Surrealists. Magritte, like many of the surrealists, was influenced by Sigmund Freud’s theories on psychoanalysis. In many of his works, Magritte used familiar objects and created spatially illogical situations, dreamlike scenes, and visual puns to create a sense of the uncanny. Magritte’s use of familiar objects shows his interest in portraying the subconscious, as it is through this sense of the uncanny that Magritte defamiliarizes the viewers conception of these objects. Magritte’s desire to create a sense of unfamiliarity in his works to engage the viewer’s subconscious shows his role as a Surrealist artist.

In The Tune and Also the Words, Magritte revisits his 1929 work titled The Treachery of Images, but this time, using gouache rather than oil on canvas. “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” which translates to “This is not a pipe”