“Art Is A Lie That Brings Us Nearer To The Truth”

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Art is a human activity and its product consists in arranging different elements to display emotions, opinions and to trigger intellectual reflection in the viewer’s mind. Art can come in many different forms and Pablo Picasso chose painting to convey his thoughts and ideas.

The statement “art is a lie that brings us nearer to the truth” can be interpreted differently according to opinions and it is therefore important to analyze it deeply in order to not jump to false conclusions. When we decompose the sentence into two parts, what Picasso is trying to say becomes less problematic to understand. “Art is a lie” By this, Picasso is trying to say that the painter himself will almost always paint something imaginary or at least not identical to what he sees. Therefore, when we look at an abstract piece of art or even an imaginary yet realistic looking painting, we are looking at a lie, in other words, something that does not truly exist. However, calling art a lie is misleading because the painter is not trying to lie to the viewer but he is trying to broaden the viewers imagination or trigger emotions to rise up. It would seem more reasonable to call art a “story” or a “tale” because that is the essence of art; to express a feeling using something more powerful than words. Language is something can only be used to describe things to a certain extent because when the imagination exceeds the boundaries of sense, it becomes very hard to put words to it. Therefore, like Picasso said himself: a picture paints a thousand words. If you were to call art a lie, you would also have to call imagination a lie, and although art and imagination are both close to that, they should not be referred to as lies. If art were a lie, by definition, it would be hiding the truth. However art does not hide the truth, it brings us nearer to it. Usually, art exists to tell the truth, only
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