Art: that one place where truth and beauty hang out way too often

   There is a subtle connection between beauty and truth: it is called art. Art has brought these two ideas into a pleasurable realm for the world to see ever since humans first decided to recreate their dreamtime visions on cave walls. The depictions in visual art, particularly, are well-suited to proving this point, so I will be focusing on visual art for this post.
   Pure beauty is often what the artist searches for throughout their entire lives, usually without success. On occasion, a talented and creative thinker comes along and is able to fulfill the dreams of many bright prospects. This hunt to capture or create beauty leads artists to try as many different techniques and disciplines as it takes. Some may criticize art which creates beauty as being untruthful, and I would agree. Some art "enhances" certain features to make it more appealing to the viewers. This tarnishes the honesty of the piece, but cannot strip that piece of its title as art.
   Other types of art, photography, portraits, and  some landscape painting, are direct recreations or representations of the essence of the beauty of a location or person of a visual scene. These are examples of how art can be both truthful and beautiful.  
   Occasionally, art tries to be nothing except truthful. Whether it is depicting the emotion of the artist in the fullest detail possible, or it is attempting to directly copy the truthfulness of a scene in explicit detail without that scene being particularly attractive. The truth in art can be very stimulating to the emotions that is why it is utilized as a tool for propaganda and persuasion.
   Good artists can capture one or the other of these concepts in their pieces, but it takes a truly great artist to incorporate each element into a single work which can make us stare for hours taking in the beauty of the piece while its raw truth makes us question everything about our existence.