“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”

— Aristotle

Source: Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest PHilosophers (1926), reprinted in Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, 1991, ISBN 0-671-73916-6], Ch. II: Aristotle and Greek Science; part VI: Psychology and the Nature of Art: "Artistic creation, says Aristotle, springs from the formative impulse and the craving for emotional expression. Essentially the form of art is an imitation of reality; it holds the mirror up to nature. There is in man a pleasure in imitation, apparently missing in lower animals. Yet the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance; for this, and not the external mannerism and detail, is their reality.

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Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder o… -384–-321 BC

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