Reality Isn't Always Real

In Norman Bryson’s “The Natural Attitude”, he quotes an old anecdote, which says:

“The contemporaries and rivals of Zeuxis were Timanthes, Androcydes, Eupompus, Parrhasius. This last, it is recorded, entered into a competition with Zeuxis. Zeuxis produced a picture of grapes so dexterously represented that birds began to fly down to eat them from the painted vine. Whereupon Parrhasius designed so lifelike a picture of a curtain that Zeuxis, proud of the verdict of the birds, requested that the curtain should now be drawn back and the picture displayed. When he realized his mistake, with a modesty that did him honor, he yielded up the palm, saying that whereas he had managed to deceive only birds, Parrhasius had deceived an artist” (Bryson)

This, in essence, sums up his article very nicely. He focuses on how painters, like the two rivals in the story, long strove to outdo each other by presenting the world as we saw it in everyday life, and whoever could paint reality the most perfectly was often yielded to by their rivals as the best painter. But, as the centuries stretched on, an emphasis was placed on painters such as Picasso, who didn’t paint reality, and if he did, it was a skewed view which made interpretations of the image different from that of a painting presenting a landscape.

All of this adds up to how, if images are credited with attempting to present reality, how we often give them great sway in society, how we take what we see as what we get. This is especially prevalent in tabloids or gossips magazines. If a celebrity is seen with a sweatshirt that perhaps has a bulge in the front, they are determined to be pregnant, even without finding out the facts, because images are credited with representing reality. There can be a lot of issues with seeing images as total reality, as one can imagine. And there is also the artist or journalist’s influence to be considered. Perhaps the photo was taken from a specific view to get across the message the taker wanted the viewer to see, not the actual reality.

Though the artists of the renaissance, like those in the anecdote, strove to outdo one another by presenting reality as real as they could reproduce, images today do not always strive for the same ideal. They are often influenced by the motives of the creator, and though are credited with presenting reality, they more than often do not.