"The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth,
and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied
passion till he grasps the essential nature of things."
Plato (428? BC - 347? BC)
Plato’s view of art is estimably bound up with what he
called the theory of ideas. Ideas are as expressed in the Republic the ultimate reality. The things are conceived as ideas
before they take practical shape as things. Therefore, a tree is nothing more than a
concrete embodiment of its image idea. The idea of everything is its original
pattern, the thing its copy. As the things are the imperfect of ideas from
which they spring. Their productions in art must be imperfect. They take men
away from reality rather than towards it. At best, they are but partial image
of it and they help neither to mould character nor to primo. According to
Plato, the artist imitates the things of the sensuous world as they appear to
him. The world itself is imperfect in an ideal archetype. It is not real,
reality exists in the idea which is absolute,
one and unchanging. And thus the artist tries to present a distorted image of
reality and tries to make an illusion of reality. Poetry, therefore, is thrice
removed from reality. In Republic –III,
Plato shows not only tragedy but epic too as a matter of the ‘imitation, or
representation, of words and action. Indeed, from the literal sense of mimesis,
Plato seems to draw a general distrust of the whole activity of imitating.
However that may be epic and tragedy presented obvious dangers for Plato, for
the words and actions they portrayed might so easily be immoral or
emotional.
But it Book X, more esoteric considerations
surface as well. In a disastrous though familiar analogy Plato likens poems to
pictures. At the top of the hierarchy of
beds is the ‘idea’ of the bed constructed by god; next comes the physical
example, this actual bed, constructed by a carpenter; lowest of all is the
picture of a bed, made by a painter.
In the Republic
Plato makes Socrates represent homer as ‘trying to speak’ of’ wars, strategy,
government, education’, and as doing it less expertly than masters of those
fields.
A through going
critic of poetry like Plato fell that epic too was an evil teachers. His
quarrel, in fact, was Greek mythology as a whole, with ‘all the tales of how
gods war, plot and fight against gods’ and even more fundamentally, with the
proposition that ‘god, which is good, is the cause of evil to anyone’.
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| Plato |
Plato is interested in literature, or art, only in so far
as its influence is beneficial in moulding the life of the good citizen. None
other is to be allowed to contaminate his state. It shall be no argument that a
poem or poet is charming, admirable, or even sacr4ed- vain arguments of
aesthetics if the teaching is not such as the guardians prescribe.
Plato launches his attack on homer and Hesiod and the
other poets who have followed their example. Plato does so for homer and
Hesiod, they misrepresent the gods, and show them as revengeful, or lustful, or
cruel, or as waging war among themselves. The tragedians and comedian are
condemned because they imitate unworthy objects. In the ideal state there is no
place for them. Let them be crowned with fillets- let perfumed oil be poured on
their heads-but they must be sent on to another city.
As a moralist, he has disapproved the poetry because it
is immoral. As a philosopher, he disapproved of it because it is based on
falsehood. His ideal man as a citizen pursues the moral ideal as an individual;
he is intent upon the pursuit of truth. But the arts deal in illusion.
When a carpenter makes a bed or chair, that bed or chair
is not reality, just an appearance of those things. There cannot be more than
one real, or ideal bed, for if there were more, each would pre-suppose as the
form or idea, which made i6t what it was, an absolute bed behind itself. The
carpenter can make no more than an imitation of the reality and the bed he
makes is once removed from the truth. But the painter’s bed is twice removed.
For, he does not imitate the reality, made by god, but the imitation, made by
the carpenter. His work therefore, is no more than an imitation of
imitation.
And in like manner the poet, using not paint, but verbs,
nouns and rhythms-appealing to the ear, where the other appealed to the eye-can
re-create no more than a weak imitation
of a copy. His subject and method are false. He appeals not to the reason but
to the emotions. Homer and Hesiod, then, must be banished. Tragedy and comedy
must go. If we permit poetry at all, it must be confined to hymns to the gods,
and verses in praise of noble men.
Key Points:
Art is imitation.
Plato believed that art is an imitation of reality, and that it is therefore a copy of a copy. This is because he believed that there is an ideal form of everything, and that the physical world is just a shadow of that form.
Art can be dangerous.
Because art is an imitation, Plato believed that it can lead us away from the truth and towards illusion. He was especially concerned about the power of art to stir the emotions, which he believed could lead to irrational behavior.
Art can be educational.
However, Plato also believed that art can be used for good. He argued that if art is used to depict the ideal forms, it can help us to understand these forms and to become better people.
Note: Plato's view of art is based on his theory of ideas. He believed that art is an imitation of reality, and that it is therefore a copy of a copy. This means that art is removed from the truth and can be dangerous. However, Plato also believed that art can be used for good, if it is used to depict the ideal forms.
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