The Truth of Art
Aaron Douglas’s style “is the result of a deep-rooted belief that in trying to imitate the actual world, art-as-likeness was really falsifying the way we see that world.” Although all art is a form of imitation—whether of the actual or the imaginary world—Douglas’s belief highlights the way artists have used conflicting methods of getting to the “truth” of the world.
Choose one image from early “realistic” methods of artistic representation and one image from later “art of alteration” and analyze the following:
What kind of truth does each work try to achieve? What methods is each artist using to create this kind of truth? How do these methods differ from each other?
Review “Renaissance Art” and “Art as Alteration” (chapter 5); “The Modern American Novel” (chapter 4).
