Of Deceit

What is art?

Fundamentally, art is -- as it has been said -- a lie. Art is deceit. When we look upon some painting, whether it be of the cubist or trompe-l'oeil school, we do not really believe that the painting is what it portrays. We do not mistake a photograph of a car for an actual car, or the Mona Lisa for an actual woman. The Mona Lisa is a representation of the woman -- a representation of something real. It is this aspect of representation that makes art necessarily dishonest.

This dishonesty, however, is not limited to traditional "art". Representations of any sort fall into this category. From the Mona Lisa to totem poles to grocery lists to Hamlet to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to a conversation between friends... All are symbols. All are attempts to express. (We call those expressions that are particularly skillful beautiful, but that is a much more subjective field of inquiry.)

Still, representation's intrinsic nature of deceit imbues it with a special characteristic: The deceit can be utilized for communication. In essence, one can "mean" one thing by "saying" another. We know representations are not actually the things they depict, but in many ways the lie of art is the closest we can come to much of reality. By acknowledging the limits of the lie, we can tell stories that never actually took place, yet, when heard, still raise important questions and dilemmas that we would encounter had the story been from our own lives.

We can dance the throes of grief.

We can write the fate of nations.

We can paint the face of God.