The Aim of Art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance...

... Perhaps this phrase just captures it all?

The sentence seems very contemporary.

 Having just spent three years studying for a BA honours degree in Contemporary Art and Illustration (in which I'm delighted to have achieved the level of a 'first'), this short aphorism says so much!...

It is very current, contextually too.

However, if I were to tell you that those were the words of Aristotle, some 384 to 322 years BC... (in other words, over two thousand years ago)!  this might surprise you.

But he was right.

Aristotle was right then, he has been for each second that has elapsed since he uttered the words, right up to the present moment that you are reading this.

So when you are struggling to understand 'art' in any form, genre, context, period, style, vogue or fashion, just think of his words...

You may be surprised at what you 'make of it' on your second look.