"art concealed artfulness"

Unattracted to the 'sordid indecency' of women, Pygmalion creates an replica of a woman in the image he believes she should be. He removes her physical flaws and the "defects of character Nature had given the feminine spirit" until she is the mirror of perfection. Representing the woman Pygmalion yearns for so completely, his imagination begins to take over, and leads him to question whether she is in fact real. His art is so much more beautiful than the truth he knows that he wishes for his art to be true, and this image evolves into his truth. If art is in opposition of truth, as we discussed in class last week, and truth is that which is beautiful, the tension between what is true and what is false comes into play. When art conceals artfulness and the artificial become more perfect, our shadows of the cave form our reality.