On Falling Short of, or Alternatively, Improving Upon, Reality

There is something beautiful about an idea that, attempting to simulate reality, falls just short of being entirely real. I say this as I view a still life painting hanging on the wall. It’s a pretty piece of art. Such simple objects as a plant in a vase and a birdcage. The painting is so vivid that it almost looks like I could walk directly into it. But then my eye glimpses some slight imperfection in this piece of art, and I remember it is a mere representation of something beautiful. Maybe it is not an imperfection, but just a junction: a meeting of reality and the artist’s interpretive license.

But realizing that the scene before me isn’t real is enthralling…captivating. I suddenly find myself wishing this painting never to become real…to stay just that—a painting—forever. I realize I enjoy this representation more than I do the reality. Ironically, I like the representation because it approximates reality. Though it is a sense of reality that causes me to enjoy this painting, it is reality that I detest.

Why? Well, if I were to walk into a room containing the same subject matter as this painting—the birdcage, the vase—I would take the scene for granted. The scene would bore me, I must confess. But when I see a vase and a birdcage in a painting, I suddenly appreciate them more. Perhaps, this is because they are frozen in time. The shadows and various points of high light and color reflection in the painting are immutable, changeless under my eternal and constant scrutiny. My eyes can caress each difference in texture over and over again. In reality, the shadows on the vase would change during the day…maybe even second by second. The fluid nature of reality, therefore, is disconcerting. I find myself longing for constancy, an existence I can pin down and scrutinize. Artwork affords me this kind of existence. Reality offers me no such thing.

Bear with me a little longer.

Reality is constantly changing, so I do not like it much. As I look at this painting one final time, I find part of myself imagining the painting is real. Why? Because it would be a wondrous thing for something as beautiful as art to cross over into the realm of reality. But then there is this counteracting sentiment: I am glad this painting isn’t real…I am relieved that it is almost real but falls short by the smallest of margins. Why? Because the attention to detail makes this synthetic world seem perfect. And I know that the real world approximated is most dreadfully far from perfect. In other words, I can look at this art and maintain the temporary illusion that the world is a much better place than I know it to be; after all, the world surely looks perfect on this canvas! This is the same reason I enjoy Tolkien’s world of Arda and Lewis’ land of Narnia. As a friend told me, everything in a myth is true but the story itself. There is something beautiful about falling short of reality. Just short. In temporality, at least. Now, in eternity…