The irony is that this too is an illusion, one in which we believe that by deconstructing artifice we are somehow enriched.

FORBES: The Unhidden Machine

The people who managed them were raised by this artifice to the role of national champions and defenders of the national economic faith.

FORBES: We're All Currency Manipulators These Days

Yet the war on artifice inspired by the forces of sincerity seeped into popular culture and commerce anyway.

WSJ: Book Review: Sincerity

By combining realism and artifice, he got the essential thing right: in a tsunami, the distinction between one object and another dissolves.

NEWYORKER: The Impossible

Arbus started out in fashion photography in partnership with her husband, Allan Arbus, but by the mid-1950s she had rejected its artifice.

ECONOMIST: The torment behind the camera

Then, investors became concerned that some of Elan's seemingly magical growth was partly the result of accounting artifice--a contention first reported by Forbes (see " Elan's Spin").

FORBES: Elan: Boom Times And Tragedy

Whereas the classics it emulates sought authenticity by filming on overseas locations, Mr Soderbergh flaunts the artifice of the genre we call film noir, recreated in the appropriate colours: blacks darker than night and whites that give off an infernal glare.

ECONOMIST: Steven Soderbergh seeks sex, lies and film noir in Berlin

Peter Galassi (1991-2012) broadened the documentary lineage favored by Newhall and Szarkowski, embracing the theatrics of Cindy Sherman, the artifice of Thomas Demand and Jeff Wall, as well as the supersize color of Andreas Gursky.

WSJ: Snapshot of a Curator | Quentin Bajac | Cultural Conversation by Richard B. Woodward

Ironically, given that he first won over so many independents by speaking his mind, the case for Mr McCain comes down to a piece of artifice: vote for him on the assumption that he does not believe a word of what he has been saying.

ECONOMIST: The presidential election