In my last post, I posited my definition of art: essentially, art is the cultivation of aesthetic value for its own sake. This definition relies upon another disputable definition, that of aesthetics. What are aesthetic values? To properly answer this question, we must first answer another question: what is the purpose of art?
According to my definition, all art is manmade. As such, all art contains some degree of artifice. And I would say that of all the different modes of art the fictional narrative embraces its artificiality most openly.
Sharing fictional narratives, the accounts of event that didn’t actually happen, is one of the oddest things that humans do. Humans spread falsehoods all the time in order to deceive and manipulate others. But crafting fiction isn’t the same as lying, because no deception takes place; the audience of the fiction knows beforehand that the information they will receive through the narrative is not based in reality.
So why do we like fiction? When I ask my writer friends this, one of the more common answers I receive is this: Fiction enables the audience to forget their troubles. Comedies, in the traditional sense—essentially, stories with happy endings—uplift audiences, and tragedies allow audiences to say, “At least I’m not that guy!” There’s likely some validity to this notion, but I don’t find it fully satisfactory. This conception reduces art to a distraction from what matters and casts artists as swindlers who tell people what they want to hear. I believe there’s more to art and fiction than that.
The great Italian poet Dante, author of the Divine Comedy, referred to fiction and other uses of artistic license as “beautiful lies.” With all due respect to Dante, I disagree with his assessment. “Beautiful lies” is an oxymoron; to lie is to sin, and sin is ugly. Moreover, Jesus told fictional narratives in the form of his parables, and to suggest that Christ told lies, beautiful or otherwise, seems inappropriate, to say the least. I say this not to accuse Dante of blasphemy; “beautiful lies” is certainly a compelling phrase, and it speaks to the inadequacy of many languages, including English, to properly describe artistic values. “Beautiful lies” brings us closer to understanding the value of fiction, but we must move beyond it.
To resolve the disparity between art’s seeming falsehood and its value, I suggest that art and by extension fiction are “true from a certain point of view,” to quote Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars: Episode VI—Return of the Jedi. I believe that art, through artifice, reveals truths that are otherwise difficult or impossible to directly perceive or articulate. There’s nothing particularly revolutionary about this claim; artists often talk about truth in relation to art. But I believe this point is not commonly understood.
So, how does artistic truth relate to aesthetics? The word aesthetics refers to the beautiful, as well as to the understanding of beauty. If art exists for aesthetic purposes, one might posit that all art should be beautiful. I would agree with this assertion, but in positing this claim we must take care not to confuse the beautiful with the pleasant. I believe multiple types of beauty exist, and one of these types—perhaps the highest beauty which art can transmit—is the peculiar type of beauty associated with truth. There is something good and invigorating about understanding the truth, even if the truth of a certain situation is unpleasant. Some of the greatest works of art produced through history—for example, John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost—have explored the nature of evil and depicted moral depravity unflinchingly, in all its unpleasantness; yet these works are nevertheless beautiful, because they communicate unpleasant truths about reality and human nature.
Throughout this article, I have referred primarily to fiction, because fictional narratives demonstrate artistic truth rather clearly; for instance, even rather farfetched stories tend to illustrate the ways in which people interact with each other, thereby communicating truth. It is perhaps less evident how this notion of artistic truth applies to more abstract art forms, such as instrumental music or surrealist visual art, neither of which depict narratives in a conventional sense. But I believe that these forms also communicate truth. I believe that if an artist feels compelled to create an artwork, and the audience finds it compelling, the work must communicate something valuable, even if that something defies conscious articulation. Perhaps the artist has unconsciously recognized something important yet abstract, and perhaps the more abstract the truth, the more abstract the art expressing that truth must be.
I believe that people create and appreciate art primarily because it communicates valuable truth. As such, a great artist doesn’t distract his audience from their lives; he improves their lives. And that seems more noble to me than lying beautifully.
