Art as Imitation

Art is imitation. It is impossible for it to not be. Too often art is revered as something sacred, when in actuality, art is the conduit through which something sacred is touched by humanity. Art simply imitates the idea that it represents. Even in the most purely expressive forms of art, connected most directly to an intangible concept, art is still just that, an expression of something else. To say that the forms that art takes are also limited to imitation alone, however, is a statement that has been proven false. It is undeniable that when dealing with things such as theater or painting or music, there is a trend of adherence to form simply because “that is how it is done”. Yet even working within conventional forms, as long as the intangible, the divine connection is current and accessible, the art is attaining the nearest thing it has to avoiding imitation. Art can avoid imitation of itself; however by its very nature, it can never avoid imitation of the divine.