Philosophy (or “theory”) of art is concerned with defining and classifying “art” and related concepts such as “mimesis,” “interpretation,” “aesthetic properties,” and “aesthetic value.” Generally, formalist theories privilege art's formal properties in defining and evaluating works of art, institutional theories consider the definition of art as a product of an artworld, aesthetic creation theories underscore the importance of aesthetic intention in defining “art,” historical theories hold that for something to be considered “art” it must bear some relation to previously established artworks, while anti-essentialist theories view art as an “open concept” that cannot be defined in terms of a static, univocal essence.

The notion of “mimesis,” along with the idea of “truth” in/of art, remains a highly debated topic in philosophy of art and aesthetic theory, from Plato's warning about the dangers of mimesis, through Aristotle's affirmation of art's potential to convey universal truths and strengthen moral character through an emotional catharsis, to the Romantics’ passionate defense of the power of art to produce emotional/moral insights and knowledge about the world that cannot be expressed in propositional terms. In the twentieth century and beyond, art critics and philosophers of art have remained ambivalent about the idea of “truth in/of art,” as evidenced by the divergent positions taken by three major studies on this subject: Eric Auerbach's classic study Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (1946) sought to demonstrate Western literature's progress, from antiquity to the twentieth century, toward increasingly naturalistic and democratic forms of representation; Jay Bernstein's The Fate of Art: