It is not claimed to represent the real world. Artists' have always been aware of the gap between the depicted image and reality on the one hand, and, on the other, of the artists' role in transforming perceived reality into art. I am the only politician in the history of the world who has made it a principal duty to be in a classroom every week. That is a symbol. I have visited every classroom in every school in Tobago, and I speak to children of symbols, about meaning and communication and information.
Art is essential.
Unless we do this we remain mere mammals, beasts, worse than savages. Says the same thing. The symbol is pregnant with meaning. It is the doorway to truth. It reveals even as it conceals.