“Art is not imitation but illusion.”
Source: Christie Johnstone (1853), CHAPTER XII.
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Charles Reade 14
British writer 1814–1884Related quotes
“Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.”
Daniel Buren, Olivier Mosset, Michel Parmentier and Niele Toroni, at the Paris Biennale in October 1967. Translated and cited in: Lucy R. Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, New York: Praeger, (1973), p. 30.
1960s
“All art is but imitation of nature.”
Omnis ars naturae imitatio est.
Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXV: On the first cause, Line 3.
“Art does not imitate, but interpret.”
The Life and Writings of Joseph Mazzini (1864), p. vii
Context: Art does not imitate, but interpret. It searches out the idea lying dormant in the symbol, in order to present the symbol to men in such form as to enable them to penetrate through it to the idea. Were it otherwise, what would be the use or value of art?
“There is no nature which is inferior to art, the arts imitate the nature of things.”
XI, 10
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book XI
“No form of Nature is inferior to Art; for the arts merely imitate natural forms.”
Meditations. xi. 10.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Art imitates Nature, and Necessity is the Mother of Invention.”
Northern Memoirs, written in 1658 and published in 1694 along with another work by Franck, The Contemplative and Practical Angler