Exploring the Age-Old Question: Does Life Imitate Art?

Have you heard the phrase ‘life imitates art’ before and wondered what that means?

Maybe you have questioned how much truth that statement holds.

Research conducted by the University of Amsterdam has found that art and media can play a significant role in shaping public opinion and political discourse.

This suggests that art may be imitating life by reflecting and amplifying broader social and political trends.

The rest of this phrase, made popular by Oscar Wilde’s 1889 essay The Decay of Lying, claims that “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”

Now, you might wonder: does life imitate art, or is art imitating life?

This is one of those deep paradoxical questions like:

• What came first, the chicken or the egg?
• If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound?
• If you replace all the wooden pieces of a ship, is it still the same ship?

Many philosophers, including Aristotle and Plato, have weighed in on art imitating life.

Writers like Oscar Wilde and actors like Bruce Willis have shared their opinions.

Before you decide which camp you are in, let me explain a little more about what the phrase means.

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.” – Oscar Wilde

What does ‘life imitates art’ mean?

According to a study by the University of Cambridge, individuals who are more creative tend to have a greater capacity for empathy and perspective-taking.

This highlights that art may be imitating life by reflecting and amplifying certain aspects of the human experience.

Oscar Wilde, the Irish poet and playwright, advocated for the anti-mimesis theory.

To understand this, it’s important to know what mimesis means. 

Mimesis, an Ancient Greek term governing the creation of works of art, has many meanings.

They primarily include imitation, receptivity, representation, mimicry, the act of expression, and the act of resembling.

Anti-mimesis is a philosophical position that proposes the opposite of Aristotelian mimesis, which uses deductive logic and analytical means.

In Poetics, Aristotle argued that “it is a natural human impulse to make art that imitates the people, places, and events around them.”

According to Billy Collings and his lesson in Master Class, “The Aristotelian concept of mimesis involved not just imitation, but addition—the poet adds symbolism and structure that lets their audience draw meaning from work.”

He believed that art imitates life, and Oscar Wilde disagreed.

Wilde felt that “things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the arts that have influenced us.”

His ideas revolved around the premise that art changes our perception of life.

So when we find beauty in nature, it is because we have an emotional reaction to a painting or work of art that we have seen before.

We are reliving the emotions we felt when we looked at those paintings.

That would be when life imitates art and not the other way around.

Plato had two theories when talking about art

The University of Oxford has found that individuals who engage with art, whether through creating or consuming it, tend to report higher levels of subjective well-being and life satisfaction. 

This suggests that art may be imitating life by promoting positive emotional states.

We may find one in his work, The Republic, which seems to be the theory that aligns with Plato’s view on the subject.

According to this theory, since art imitates tangible things, then art is always a copy of a copy and leads us even further from the truth and toward illusion.

Plato felt art could be dangerous because it can also stir powerful emotions.

His other theory described artists as prophets because, thanks to their divine inspiration, they create a better copy of ‘the True.’

What if that painting depicting a forest full of lush green trees the artist envisioning is better than the burnt-dead forest he became inspired by?

Therefore, that art is imitation was central to both theories.

Plato says that art imitates the objects and events of ordinary life.

“I think when people talk about art imitating life, you’re in real-time.” – Mike Colter

Did the artist paint that picture because they experienced a profound emotion when they witnessed a nature scene?

Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School, painted a View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm.

We commonly refer to this painting as The Oxbow.

The painting depicts a panoramic view of the Connecticut River Valley after a thunderstorm.

Did Thomas Cole paint this because he felt so moved by the way the sun peaked on half of the canvas, despite the angry dark clouds still present on the left?

Was he trying to capture a view of untamed wilderness?

According to an article from The Met, master printmaker Basil Hall criticized ‘Americans’ inattentiveness to their scenery, and Cole responded with a landscape that lauds the uniqueness of America by encompassing a union of the picturesque, the sublime, and the magnificent.’

Looking closely, you can see that Thomas Cole painted himself in the painting.

He is in the middle, and his easel is visible, as is his brush, while he paints “The Oxbow.”

This piece was morally noteworthy, besides being beautifully done!

Proponents of the anti-mimesis theory, like Wilde, believe that “What is found in life and nature is not what is there, but is that which artists have taught people to find there, through art. As in an example posited by Wilde, although there has been fog in London for centuries, one notices the beauty and wonder of the fog because poets and painters have taught the loveliness of such effects… They did not exist until Art invented them (F. C. McGrath).”

“It’s weird, like, my life has always imitated art, and my art has always imitated life.” – Sebastian Bach

How do you answer this question?

I feel like this is one of those situations where two things can exist at the same time.

When I walk around the lake at dusk, the sun looks so beautiful because I have seen Sunlight and Shadow: The Newbury Marshes. 

It reminds me of the beautiful colors of water and green space in the painting.

Maybe that painting taught me there was a beauty to be found when colors stream across the sky and blend with the clouds.

Perhaps Martin Johnson Heade, an American painter known for his salt marsh landscapes, seascapes, and nature depictions, saw beauty in a scene before him.

He was then inspired to recreate it for someone else.

Art historians regard his painting style and subject, derived from the romanticism of the time, as a significant departure from his peers.

Maybe he found joy in painting what he wanted, even though it was different.

Can you create art that moves people if you haven’t experienced something similar?

Does the surrounding beauty inspire the painter to pick up his brush and capture a moment?

Or does a moment captured on a canvas trigger a deeper emotion when you witness something similar in person?

It’s all a matter of perspective

I know that, as a writer, I draw on the emotions and situations I have had in my life.

Sometimes, pieces of my story work their way into my fiction pieces.

Other times I write the raw, unvarnished truth of my trauma.

I would say that is a case of art imitating life.

As a reader, I can say that when I read something that triggers an emotional response, I relate to the characters more because I have my experience to draw from.

This still feels like art imitating life.

Whenever I see a bee or hear of someone having an allergic reaction (which I have never had), the only thing I can think of is when Thomas J. Sennett dies in My Girl. 

It amazes me how often I recall the feelings of that scene because of something happening around me in real life.

This is a matter of life imitating art for me, as my emotions are tied to the work of art and not the experience.

“Art imitates life, and, sometimes, life imitates art. It’s a weird combination of elements.” – Bruce Willis

So, do you think that life imitates art, or is art imitating life?

Does it matter, because either way, there is beauty around us?

Can both things be true at the same?

John McGlade, Ph.D. in Architecture & Fine Art, says, “On the text of life, art is the highlighter.”

Maybe they aren’t separate entities of the same thing, like the chicken and the egg.

Maybe they go hand in hand, like the fabric used to make a shirt.

A tool, if you will.

Join in on this philosophical debate in the comment section below, and maybe we can see what the consensus is.

Don’t forget to share this article with your friends so they can weigh in too!