Imitation Theory Quotes

No form of nature is inferior to art; for the arts merely imitate natural forms.

Perhaps the least cheering statement ever made on the subject of art is that life imitates it.

The power of works of art still continues to be secretly nourished by imitation... kitsch

Tragedy is an imitation not of men but of a life, an action

The counterfeit and counterpart of Nature is reproduced in art.

The oldest theory of art belongs to the Greeks, who regarded art as an imitation (mimesis) of reality. The strength of that theory is that it explains the way in which art takes its materials from real life.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

When I'm introduced at invited lectures at other universities, the students place a Bobo doll by the lectern. From time to time, I have been asked to autograph one. The Bobo doll has achieved stardom in psychological circles.

Everything in art is but a copy of nature.

It is, in fact, safe to assume that, more often than not, life imitates craft, for who among us can say that our experience does not more closely resemble a macramé plant holder than it does a painting by Seurat. When it comes to art, life is the biggest copycat in the matter of the frame.

My works are an imitation of my own past and present.

Each of us is in fact what he is almost exclusively by virtue of his imitative-ness.

Imitation is for the most part so unconscious that its effects are almost unheeded, but its influence is not the less permanent on that account. It is only when an impressive nature is placed in contact with an impressionable one that the alteration in the character becomes recognizable. Yet even the weakest natures exercise some influence upon those about them. The approximation of feeling, thought, and habit is constant, and the action of example unceasing.

Art's greatest efforts are invariably a timid counterfeit of Nature.

The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 coined the term ‘meme’ for a unit of cultural imitation.

True art is reverent imitation of God.