Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Reality And Illusion In The Work Of Art, Lawrence Kimmel

Philosophy Faculty Research

Two basic intuitions that frame the relation of art and illusion in this essay—a conviction that illusion is essential to art, but also that art is an essential resource of truth—present an apparent conflict that invites or requires resolution. Indeed, conflict and disagreement seem endemic to discussions of art. In philosophy, the question of the relation art and reality invariably begins with Plato's well-known critique of art as mimesis, as imitation, that makes the process of art a second order activity of copying, and thus an essential distraction from the more serious first order business of life and truth. It …