The reportage: art and reality

Abstract

Discussed is the nature of media reportage in the context of the art-like nature of non-artistic reality. Reportage is seen by the author as a hybrid form of creativity inspired by existing factual material and at the same time as one bearing all the hallmarks of a work of art. Examining the issue in the context of Maria Gołaszewska’s book on “Aesthetics of reality”, the author observes that the art-like nature of the existing reality used as the subject-matter in reportage is being tied up with non-artistic world events discerned through the prism of categories related to art. Accordingly, this field of creativity is shown to be the result of a cognitive mixture of two orders: the art and the reality.