On Aristotle's Introduction To "The Poetics"
Art in any form cannot be wholly defined as "imitation" as much as it can be defined as "mutation". Art as imitation depicts an inherent lack of true substance. A drawing of or poem about an apple will never be that apple. The same applies for intangibles such as experience or emotion. A piece of art exists separately from any related thought or object as a depiction of nothing but itself. Aristotle's "imitation" idea stems from the need for one to relate this mutation to something one is already aware of. The range of response varies innumerably from person to person, or even animal to animal. The beauty in art is this very concept: The concept that the piece of art wrought from the universe may be related to anything that exists in the universe. Thus we understand art to be the mutated form of any number of things in the universe experienced through stimulation of the senses.