  We give very flexible, concrete constructions of discrete and faithful
epresentations of right-angled Artin groups into higher-rank Lie groups. Using
the geometry of the associated symmetric spaces and the combinatorics of the
groups, we find a general criterion for when discrete and faithful
representations exist, and show that the criterion is satisfied in particular
cases. There are direct applications towards constructing representations of
surface groups into higher-rank Lie groups, and, in particular, into lattices
in higher-rank Lie groups.
