Suit the action to the word, the word to the action,
with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature:
for any thing so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing,
whose end, both at the first and now, was and is,
to hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature:
to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image,
and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
Hamlet Act 3, scene 2, 17–24

The artist holds a mirror up to nature.
But the artist’s mirror does not reflect exactly the way things look. It shows how things are on the inside.

A normal, physical mirror only reflects the outside, the appearance, the material,
We see ourselves in a mirror and believe we see what we are and we are what we see.

We need to break the mirror in order to get inside it…

Photo realism paintings, what use?
Van Gogh painted how things are, in their subjectivity.

The physical mirror shows how things are in time
The artist’s mirror shows how things are in eternity

This is why I am not an artist, not trying to create something greater than God. Not trying to create anything of my own.
Because the greatest art and greatest poetry belong to life, to ordinary existence as it is.
I’m just reflecting, just pointing out, just reminding you to look, just helping you to see, to hear, to notice the beauty which surrounds you within and without…….
just holding a mirror.