Let’s go back now and take a closer look at the first of the three major centers of our interest and talk about art, what the artwork represents. This is surely the most recognizable and familiar aspect of art to most people and is associated with the earliest Western theory of art, the Greek view that art is a direct copy or imitation of nature. It is also the most persistent idea in Western art, dominating not only the philosophy of art, but criticism and art itself for over two thousand years. Nor is this theory of art out of the running today. Spokesmen for the most trendy, contemporary art, called, appropriately, New Realism, are again proclaiming that the imitative, realistic aspects of art is its most valuable asset. Rejecting all subjective emotive interpretations which we project upon the world, the Realists insist on "telling it like it is" – nothing but the facts. Robbe–Grillet, a leader of New Realist writing, for example, contrasts his realist writing with the anthropomorphic novelists of the past who cloud

a precise reflection on man, his situation in the world . . . with a certain anthropocentric atmosphere, vague but imbuing all things, giving the world its so–called significance, investing it from within by a more or less disingenuous network of sentiments and thoughts.... [But] the world around us [now] turns back into a smooth surface, without significance, without soul, without values . . . we find ourselves once again facing things.... Instead of this universe of "signification" (psychological, social, functional), we must try then, to construct a world both more solid and more immediate. Let it be first of all by their presence that objects and gestures establish themselves.... The world is neither significant nor absurd. It is, quite simply.... And suddenly the obviousness of this strikes us with irresistible force. All at once the whole splendid construction collapses; opening our eyes unexpectedly [to]...the shock of the stubborn reality we were pretending to have mastered. Around us, defying the noisy pack of our animistic or protective adjectives, things are there.1

The ideal art, according to this realist view, is an art inseparable from reality, an art in which the art work transparently reveals but does not interfere with or get in the way of the perceiver’s direct grasp of reality. It follows from this view that anything which does get in the way is a distortion, a projection of human biases and wishful thinking. In short the theory implies:

1. that subject matter is all that is important in a work of art;
2. that the work of art is a transparent opening to the subject matter (like looking out of a window at a building outside);
3. that the art work consequently cannot tell us anything about the subject matter;
4. that our response to the art work is therefore (ideally) exactly what it is to the subject matter depicted;
5. that there is consequently nothing peculiar to art which differentiates it in any way from reality (except its inherent inaccuracy and phoniness);
6. that art criticism is heteronomously tied to realistic standards outside art (leading to censorship and modern advertising practices);
7. that the artist contributes nothing to the art work (that imitation is the opposite of imagination); and
8. that reality can be portrayed just as it is in itself.

Much of this idea is contained in our ordinary notion of imitation and can be extracted, as we suggested in the first chapter, by analyzing what the word imitation means. The first thing to note about imitation is that it is not the same thing as resemblance. If a stone found on the beach resembles Fidel Castro, it does not follow either that the stone is imitating Fidel or that Fidel is imitating the stone. It is true, on the other hand, that most cases of successful imitation involve, or presuppose, some sort of resemblance.

This brings out an important difference between resemblance and imitation. Imitation is something people try to accomplish, something one strives for, succeeds or fails at; whereas resemblance is simply a coincidence. Closely related to the element of failure and success is our attitude of evaluating not only the imitator but also the imitation, according to how much it succeeds in looking like, or resembling the thing which is being imitated. There seems to be the implication that the imitation ought to look like the thing imitated, that it is good to the extent that it does and bad to the extent that it does not. This likeness is the goal, or purpose of the imitator that, in turn, determines our standards of success and failure, both for the imitator and for the imitation. None of this is true in the case of resemblance. Two things may not look alike, but there is no question of failure; nor is there a question of success simply because two things look very much alike. And this is because there is, so far, no reason why they should look alike.

If we consider one further difference between imitation and resemblance we will have before us the main points to be understood about imitation. If I resemble Fidel Castro, then he resembles me. But if I imitate Fidel in some way, he is not thereby imitating me. Resemblance, we may say, goes in two directions; imitation, in only one direction. Resemblance in other words, is a "symmetrical" relation while imitation is "asymmetrical." This last point is probably the most important in our analysis. Imitation aims at one thing: looking exactly like the common sorts of objects we see about us every day – chairs, tables, trees, stones, etc. – and these things, perceived in their ordinary way, become the sole standard by which we judge the accuracy, and hence the worth, of the imitation. This evaluation occurs in two ways: first, insofar as we always match, say, the drawing of a chair with the chair itself to check the accuracy of the imitation, and secondly, in the sense that our everyday estimates of the relative worth of these objects is reflected in our estimate of the worth of the corresponding imitations of such objects. Part of our idea of imitation, in other words, is the assumption that if a man is more valuable than an earthworm, then a drawing of a man is more valuable than a drawing of an earthworm, even if both are equally "life like." Why? The answer has to do with what was just said about the asymmetrical relation between the imitation and the thing imitated. We tend to think of the copy striving to be as much like the thing copied as possible, the copy becoming a kind of poor substitute for the original. Our only interest in the copy is our interest in the original, and if we could have the original we would not want the copy...