Heidegger makes the comment that disclosure is a concealing, a revealing and concealing of truth at the same time. Art does this, but the spectator is always aware of the trick whenever he or she is able to appreciate that what is being contemplated is a work of art. Magritte’s over-statement is funny because no-one (with apologies to Duchamp and his urinal) had made it before. The truth is a lie, but we would prefer even the falsification of it than to ignore it. In art we see the reflection of something that we know but cannot really pin down ourselves. What surprises us in art is the fact that someone has been able to create a reflection of something which we had sensed but hadn’t been able to put our finger on before. It is not the thing that we know or imagine internally but it seems like a good attempt at recreating it in the external of the doxa.

¶ 6:33 AM