"All art is but imitation of nature."-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

This seems like an antique concept when we see so much abstraction in art, but when you think about the many meanings of the word "nature", we see that abstract art could be said to imitate our emotional nature, conceptual art can capture our intellectual nature, and surrealism pictures the nature of the dreamworld. Still, I have to beg to differ with Seneca.  Even "realistic" paintings and photography don't just imitate the still life on the table or the tree-lined pasture land.  In an artists hands, they bring to life the true nature of the world we see in all it's beauty and complexity.