"De tous les mensonges l'art est le moins mensonger"
— Gustave Flaubert
Simplified Meaning:
Art can capture deep truths about human experiences and emotions better than straightforward facts sometimes. Imagine you see a painting of a sunset. The colors might be more vibrant than any real sunset, but the painting can evoke the same feelings of peace and beauty you experience when watching a real sunset. This means that art, even though it's not literally true, can express genuine feelings and truths about life. Similarly, a novel or movie might tell a made-up story, but the emotions and situations can feel very real and relatable, showing true aspects of what it's like to be human. When someone reads a sad story and cries, it's not because the story actually happened, but because it connects to real emotions they understand. So even though art isn't factual or literal, it reaches a kind of truth about our lives and our inner worlds that can be very powerful and real. If you want to understand life or yourself better, looking at art might help you in ways that simple facts can't. This is how art, while being about imaginary things, might be the most truthful way to capture our real experiences.