Life imitates art, or is it the other way around?
‘Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.’
– Oscar Wilde
“What is found in life and nature is not what is really there, but what artists have taught people to find there, through art. As in an example posited by Wilde, although there has been fog in London for centuries, one notices the beauty and wonder of the fog because "poets and painters have taught the loveliness of such effects...They did not exist till Art had invented them."
– Francis Charles McGrath (1999) via Wikipedia
Life imitates art, or is art imitating life?
The statement ‘life imitates art’ always initiates a kind of endless loop in my mind, an unsolvable riddle. Does life imitate art, or is art imitating life? I have rattled this around in my head a lot writing this, and I am beginning to believe that both are equally true. Allow me to explain.
At first impression it would appear that art imitates life. After all, as artists we draw from life, we study life and interpret it through our own gaze. But here is where things get confusing. To interpret a subject through the eyes of an artist means to reinvent it in a sense. And as Wilde points out, we paint not just what we see, but more importantly how we see it. A well-executed painting will often evoke the same emotion in the viewer as the one that the artist painted into it. You can usually get a clear sense of how the artist saw the subject by the way in which it was painted.
Art As a metaphor for life
Art is a metaphor for life. I feel that all art is autobiographical, even if it seems otherwise. I, for example, often use myself in my art so it is evident in my case. Yet other artists who might paint abstract paintings, photograph sunsets, or compose classical music, or whatever it might be, are still basing their creations on a place of subjectivity, from a place of their personal view of the world. In that way, I suppose art imitates life, as what we see in that finished work of art is a direct reflection of the creator’s personal experience. I go into this idea in a little more detail in the video below.
How Art imitates Life through the act of creation
Another way that I believe that life imitates art is in the act of creation. When painting a painting, we often go into a meditative, or flow state. A state of deep concentration. In this flow state, the brain operates in a different way than usual. Many artists I’m sure can relate, but in this state, you can almost feel your brain retrieving information from deep within your subconscious mind.
You begin to draw on information that you have learned through past works of art, through life experiences, through your childhood, through information gathered in one way or another along the way. It seems to flow up, like a rising tide, from your subconscious to your conscious mind as you paint.
Lessons learned While creating
The flow state offers up a bounty of metaphors for life, or art imitating life in a sense, as you create. The artist is reminded to paint things as they are rather than how her mind perceives them to be. She is reminded that diligence and consistency result in growth, expansion and marked improvement. She is reminded that improvement is accumulative and is not linear. She is reminded that she continually needs to step back to see things clearly. All huge life metaphors.
In all honestly, the analogy of art imitating life, or vice versa, is one that I find to be entirely perplexing, as anyway I look at it I can see an infinite continuous loop between life and art. This unending connection is part of the very essence of my passion for making art. The ‘chicken or the egg’ type paradox that this discussion incites in me illustrates perfectly the intrinsic nature of life and art, of life and creation.
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What do you believe – life imitates art, or art imitates life? In delving deeper into this paradox I think that I have possibly confused myself even further! Please feel free to join the discussion below, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
