Seeing Through Conventions

Chapter 6, ‘Seeing Through Conventions’, examines how all artistic representation is governed by conventions—material, ideological or thematic—which artists work variously to confirm, challenge or overturn. It is these conventions which differentiate art from nature. Art is nevertheless judged by its fidelity to nature, by its truth-telling quality. The term ‘verisimilitude’ identifies the lifelike character of a work of art. But being true to life goes beyond mere appearances, and this deeper truth of art is identified as its ‘verity’. Paradoxically, what ensures both verity and verisimilitude in art is not the absence of convention, but its judicious application.