Life imitates art far more than art imitates life

Jourdan Zebraa Self Portrait 2015

"T-REXING Pose" Circa 2012-2017

Jourdan's "Andy Warhol Figment Period"

on The Andy Warhol Museum tumblr

We are what we see and we see what we are! -XOXO jzebraa

"Life imitates art far more than art imitates life" is a philosophical concept—known as anti-mimesis—stating that people, nature, and real-world events mirror the forms, styles, and ideas invented by artists.

Key Class Ideas

Oscar Wilde’s Theory: In his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying, Wilde argued that nature has no intrinsic shape or beauty until art teaches us how to look at it. For example, he claimed London fogs were "invented" by impressionist painters and poets because no one noticed their beauty until art captured them. [1, 2, 3]
Perception and Behavior: Humans naturally adopt the aesthetics, worldviews, and behaviors popularized in movies, literature, and paintings. [1, 2]
Defictionalization: As tracked on TV Tropes, hypothetical inventions, sci-fi concepts, and storytelling tropes frequently turn into real-world technology or actual events. [1]
Art Imitates Life (The Flip Side): While Wilde focused on the reverse, traditional mimesis (championed by Plato and others) holds that art is merely a reflection or copy of the physical world. In consensus from community discussions like Reddit, the two forces exist in a continuous loop where creators draw from reality, and society then reshapes reality to match the art.


Life imitates art far more than art imitates life's story! -XOXO jzebraa