Art is a lie I use to tell the truth —Picasso^[1]

L’exactitude n’est pas la verité  —Matisse^[2]

[1] “We all know that art is not truth.  Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand.  The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.”   (Picasso, in Ashton, 1977:21).   Picasso may be echoing George Braque’s comment on cubist representation here.  Also, Delacroix said that painting, unlike photography, had to tell a lie to tell the truth (Vaizey, NYTBR 4/1/1984:10)

[2]“L’exactitude n’est pas la vérité” (Matisse)   the motto of a book about Walker Evans quoted by Hellmut Wohl in his essay, “Leonardo Da Vinci” (1967, McGraw Hill, N.Y.)

Henri Matisse wrote, “…to sum up observations that I have been making for many years on the characteristics of a drawing, characteristics that do  not depend on the exact copying of natural forms, or on the patient assembling of exact details, but on the profound feeling of the artist before the objects which he has chosen, on which his attention is focused, and the spirit of which he has penetrated…” “… Thus there is an inherent truth which must be disengaged from the outward appearance of the object to be represented. this is the only truth that matters.” From an essay written in May 1947 in the catalogue of an exhibition of Matisse’s drawings in Liège cf Henri Matisse, Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture Organized in Collaboration with the Artist, Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition catalogue 3 April-9 May 1948, pp 33-34.  Cf Chipp HB, Seltz PH, Theories of modern art, Univ of California Press, Berkeley…, 1968 p. 138 – quoted in http://wisdom.tenner.org/the-power-to-make-things-simple.html (downloaded 6/15/2016)

But compare this to Ezra Pound’s view of exactitude (1913:163) quoted from The New Freewoman, I: 9, 1913, p.163,  By Marina Camboni:  “Above all, Pound maintains, art should be valued for its relation to life and to fundamental issues. Touching these last, he writes, ‘the arts give us our data of psychology, of man as to his interiors, as to the ration of his thought to his emotions, etc.’ and concludes: “The touchstone of art is its precision” Here is the overall value of art. However, Pound believes that only a specialist can determine the value of a work of art. The specialist is his version of the artist as scientist, an artist who, like the scientist, abstracts from the ‘aegrum vulgus’ (p. 163).”   From “Dora Marsden, Ezra Pound, H.D. and The Art of the Future” Part II by Marina Camboni; http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/however/v1_4_2000/current/alerts/camboni.html

“Among his discoveries, the quality he termed “precision” became the most conspicuous through the incessant reiteration of the term and its alternatives. Its connotation included such terms as “exactness,” “details,” “particulars,” the “true” and the “real.” By precision Pound meant, essentially, the authentic and direct experience of individual realities and “the exactness of poetic presentation” (87). He again considered that Dante typified this quality: “a sort of hyper-scientific precision [that] is the touchstone and assay of the artist’s power, of his honor, his authenticity” (87). To illustrate this notion, Pound repeatedly cited Dante’s example: “say, not ‘Where a river pools itself,’ but ‘As at Arles, where the Rhone pools itself ‘” (159). Tracing the quality of precision to a tradition that survived from the Provençal poets to Dante, Pound considered this quality representing a spirit of the medieval and a paramount criterion for modern poetry. All this addressed his desire to renovate modern poetry with the notion of precision serving as an alternative to symbolist obscurity or “atmospheric suggestion” (159). A similar significance Pound found in the troubadours was in “emotion,” “love,” and “truth.” For the young Pound, sincerity and emotion, even erotic passion, contributed to the crystallisation of ecstasy and intensity in poetry. Like precision, these elements were also considered part of the spirit of the medieval period: the troubadours “lost the names of the gods and remembered the names of lovers” (90). He traced the singing of erotic passion to Hellenic paganism, and to the mysteries of love as rhymed by Ovid and Virgil, both of whom influenced the Provençal poets (90). Pound thus considered emotion to be an enduring “cult” that was fading away in his own time, and so worth taking pains to invoke “the dead” and to remind his contemporaries of this tradition — “by naming over the most beautiful things we know we may draw back upon the mind some vestige of the heavenly splendor” (96). He even went so far as to modernise the cult of sexual attraction when he wrote Lustra, of which some poems were deleted from the commercial version because the editor considered them as obscene to readers of the time.”  From CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture: A WWWeb Journal ISSN 1481-4374 CLCWeb Library of Research and Information … CLCWeb Contents 3.4 (December 2001) <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb01-4/tao.html> 8Purdue University Press  By Naikan TAO, Chinese literature and comparative literature at Macquarie University, with particular emphasis on cultural relations between China and the West.

[3] Adapted from an epigraph from a Kazantzakis novel in A. Melnyczuk’s novel What is Told  (NYTBR 27 March 1994: 6).    (Sallust[3] would agree, “These things never were, but always are,” he wrote.  (http://patriot.net/~lillard/cp/sall.html )

[4] Salmon Rushdie in an appreciation of García Márquez in the NYTBR APRIL 21, 2014: 26

[5] Where correspondence means that the concept—the object in mind—is  a good match for the object in the world outside, and coherence means that the concept “fits in with” other concepts—in memory, current circumstances, or expectations.

[6] Frank Lloyd Wright quoted in Context, 5/6/94  Vol 11/No 14  (Frequently quoted but unsourced and thus scorned by Wikiquote).

[7]THE PROBLEM WITH PRECISION:   “the Spirit (PNEUMOS) makes alive.” -2 Corinthians 3:6 (Interlinear Bible) the literal “kills”. The “mind of the flesh” is “death”. But seeing things in terms of their spiritual meanings breathes life into them and fosters true understanding. It was to these kinds of literal minded people that Jesus was referring when he said “seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand”. Literal interpretation misleads and results in spiritual blindness and death. Paul’s analysis of this problem proved to be frighteningly accurate. As witnessed by later developments, this literal, fleshly method of interpretation resulted in the deaths of John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, Paul, the rest of the Apostles and thousands… perhaps even millions of other Christians throughout history.” This enables the author to avoid the fleshly requirement of circumcision – it’s circumcision in the heart that counts. ( http://www.bci.org/prophecy‑fulfilled/ntint.htm )

[8] https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/ap-art-history/early-europe-and-colonial-americas/medieval-europe-islamic-world/a/a-new-pictorial-language-the-image-in-early-medieval-art  An illusion of reality.   Classical art, or the art of ancient Greece and Rome, sought to create a convincing illusion for the viewer. Artists sculpting the images of gods and goddesses tried to make their statues appear like an idealized human figure. Some of these sculptures, such as the Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles, were so lifelike that legends spread about the statues coming to life and speaking to people. After all, a statue of a god or goddess in the ancient world was believed to embody deity.

The problem for early Christians.  The illusionary quality of classical art posed a significant problem for early Christian theologians. When God dictated the ten commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, God expressly forbade the Israelites from making any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth (Exodus 20:4). Early Christians saw themselves as the spiritual progeny of the Israelites and tried to comply with this commandment. Nevertheless, many early Christians were converted pagans who were accustomed to images in religious worship. The use of images in religious ritual was visually compelling and difficult to abandon.

Tertullian asks: Can artists be Christians?  Tertullian, an influential early Christian author living in the second and third centuries, wrote a treatise titled On Idolatry in which he asks if artists could, in fact, be Christians. In this text, he argues that all illusionary art, or all art that seeks to look like something or someone in nature, has the potential to be worshiped as an idol. Arguing fervently against artists as Christians, he acknowledges that there are many artists who are Christians and indeed some who are even priests. In the end, Tertullian asks artists to quit their work and become craftsmen.

Augustine: illusionary images are lies  Another influential early Christian writer, St. Augustine of Hippo, was also concerned about images, but for different reasons. In his Soliloquies (386-87), Augustine observes that illusionary images, like actors, are lying. An actor on a stage lies because he is playing a part, trying to convince you that he is a character in the script when in truth he is not. An image lies because it is not the thing it claims to be. A painting of a cat is not a cat, but the artist tries to convince the viewer that it is. Augustine cannot reconcile these lies with patterns of divine truth and therefore does not see a place for images in Christian practice.* — A New Pictorial Language: The Image in Early Medieval Art, Essay by Dr. Nancy Ross. https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/ap-art-history/early-europe-and-colonial-americas#medieval-europe-islamic-world

[9] This ode contains the most discussed two lines in all of Keats’s poetry – ‘”Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’ The exact meaning of those lines is disputed by everyone; no less a critic than TS Eliot considered them a blight upon an otherwise beautiful poem.” — http://englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/odeonagrecianurn/

[10].  Pound, Ezra. 1913:163 quoted from The New Freewoman, I: 9, 1913, p.163,  By Marina Camboni:  “Above all, Pound maintains, art should be valued for its relation to life and to fundamental issues. Touching these last, he writes, ‘the arts give us our data of psychology, of man as to his interiors, as to the ration of his thought to his emotions, etc.’ and concludes: “The touchstone of art is its precision” Here is the overall value of art. However, Pound believes that only a specialist can determine the value of a work of art. The specialist is his version of the artist as scientist, an artist who, like the scientist, abstracts from the ‘aegrum vulgus’ (p. 163).”  From “Dora Marsden, Ezra Pound, H.D. and  The Art of the Future”: Part II by Marina Camboni; http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/however/v1_4_2000/current/alerts/camboni.html

“Among his discoveries, the quality he termed “precision” became the most conspicuous through the incessant reiteration of the term and its alternatives. Its connotation included such terms as “exactness,” “details,” “particulars,” the “true” and the “real.” By precision Pound meant, essentially, the authentic and direct experience of individual realities and “the exactness of poetic presentation” (87). He again considered that Dante typified this quality: “a sort of hyper-scientific precision [that] is the touchstone and assay of the artist’s power, of his honor, his authenticity” (87). To illustrate this notion, Pound repeatedly cited Dante’s example: “say, not ‘Where a river pools itself,’ but ‘As at Arles, where the Rhone pools itself ‘” (159). Tracing the quality of precision to a tradition that survived from the Provençal poets to Dante, Pound considered this quality representing a spirit of the medieval and a paramount criterion for modern poetry. All this addressed his desire to renovate modern poetry with the notion of precision serving as an alternative to symbolist obscurity or “atmospheric suggestion” (159). A similar significance Pound found in the troubadours was in “emotion,” “love,” and “truth.” For the young Pound, sincerity and emotion, even erotic passion, contributed to the crystallisation of ecstasy and intensity in poetry. Like precision, these elements were also considered part of the spirit of the medieval period: the troubadours “lost the names of the gods and remembered the names of lovers” (90). He traced the singing of erotic passion to Hellenic paganism, and to the mysteries of love as rhymed by Ovid and Virgil, both of whom influenced the Provençal poets (90). Pound thus considered emotion to be an enduring “cult” that was fading away in his own time, and so worth taking pains to invoke “the dead” and to remind his contemporaries of this tradition — “by naming over the most beautiful things we know we may draw back upon the mind some vestige of the heavenly splendor” (96). He even went so far as to modernise the cult of sexual attraction when he wrote Lustra, of which some poems were deleted from the commercial version because the editor considered them as obscene to readers of the time.”  From CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture: A WWWeb Journal ISSN 1481-4374CLCWeb Library of Research and Information … CLCWeb Contents 3.4 (December 2001) <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb01-4/tao.html> 8Purdue University Press  By Naikan TAO, Chinese literature and comparative literature at Macquarie University, with particular emphasis on cultural relations between China and the West.

[11] In C. R. Leslie Memoirs of the Life of John Constable (1843) ch. 17

[12] in  Agatha Christie’sThe Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926 /Black Dog Publishing: 2006:153).

[13] “Organ of Civilization”  (Luria 1966)

[14] Renoir commenting on Courbet, quoted by  Fenton (1996) in ADegas in Chicago,@ NYRB 10/17/96 pp. 14-18.

[15] Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn (in English: “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense“, also called “On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense“^[1]) is an (initially) unpublished work of Friedrich Nietzsche written in 1873, one year after The Birth of Tragedy.^[2] It deals largely with epistemologicalquestions of truth and language, including the formation of concepts. … These ideas about truth and its relation to human language have been particularly influential among postmodern theorists,^[4] and “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense” is one of the works most responsible for Nietzsche’s reputation (albeit a contentious one) as “the godfather of postmodernism.”^[6] Wikipedia

[16] Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1817): “That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.”   —  Samuel T. Coleridge (1772-1834), British poet and literary critic, wrote in Chapter XIV of his autobiography, Biographia Literaria, the following passage:   

“In this idea originated the plan of the “Lyrical Ballads”; in which it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind’s attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand.”

[Related to HABIT & deautomatization]

When the reader/viewer becomes involved in the artist’s work and, even though s/he knows that none of the events or person recorded in the story can actually occur, s/he “lets it happen” and can thereby enjoy a stronger bond with the mind of the artist.

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1817. Biographia Literaria ch. 14  p314 in Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. by H.J. Jackson, Oxford, 1985 — http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/biographia.html
• http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/biographia.html  Preface to the Lyrical Ballads: http://www.bartleby.com/39/36.html

“… between Wordsworth’s early principles and his late principles came a period of about ten years when he had no firm principles, only questions and intuitions; and it was from these that his great poetry was born. If Wordsworth survives as a living possibility for today’s readers and poets—and he should—it is thanks not to his teaching but to his use of verse as a medium for introspection and self-questioning. No poet before him paid such close attention to the way the mind actually works, the odd jumps that connect our ideas and perceptions.”  …    “He grows close to the brilliant Coleridge, collaborates with him on their reputation-making volume of “Lyrical Ballads,” in 1798, and eventually breaks with him, fed up with his neuroses and addictions. He has five children with his beloved Mary, three of whom he buries, to his tremendous grief. And through it all he rises slowly from cult author to national institution.”  —Adam Kirsch in The New Yorker DECEMBER 5, 2005.  “STRANGE FITS OF PASSION: Wordsworth’s revolution” (blog comments)   (Wordsworth Resources)