Who leads whom - art or life?

At my college fest many years ago, I was asked if art imitated life or vice versa. I gave some word salad answer which people barely heard. The gist of the answer, if I remember correctly, was that art and life feed off each other.

Today, I would like to qualify that answer.

Yes, some art feeds off life. A biography, a portrait, a still photograph - each of these depict life in the current moment. They summarize it, massage or elide the unsavory bits, and package it for consumption by people who don't want to spend their energy feeling something in response to it.

Other art, thoroughly and deeply imagined, with no counterpart in the real world is where art leads life. It shows us possibilities. It shows us impossibilities and never befores. It makes us recoil in terror or look at each in stupefaction. It sometimes leaves us cold.

Our reaction to art defines our life. If our jaw drops in response to a work of art, we spend years maybe lifetimes trying to recreate that moment of awe. This is where life unequivocally follows art.

You'd be hard pressed to find a situation when life leads art. You could argue that a society which oppresses artists feeds their creativity but not having personally experienced it, I don't know how true that is.

If you think about it, art is where a company like Apple separates itself from the pack. While the rest of technology build function, Apple is know to marry form and function and humanity as a whole is better off for it.