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| 1 | The circumstances in Greek culture which allowed Plato to create his lofty Dialogues also allowed the incredible experimentation and development of the arts, including sculpture, literature, music, painting, ceramics, and architecture. The brief period of the sixth and fifth centuries BCE culminated in the progression of philosophy from Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; and also the bolder masterpieces of artistic achievement including the statue of the Discobolus by Myron and the Parthenon in Athens. The Discobolus displays a a realistic portrayal of an athlete, giving a sense of movement in the twisting form, and a sense of reaching out into the surrounding space that had not appeared in the sculpture of other cultures. This statue also idealizes the human form, showing poised balance, smooth skin and hair, and yet retaining individualized features. On the other hand, the grand columns, friezes, and colossal layout of the Parthenon is a statement by the Greeks of their reverence for balance, order, and harmony. The impressive layout of the Parthenon also reflects the Greek quest for favor from the gods, as well as to trumpet their dominance and strength of their culture. |
| 2 | The birth of the western sciences came from the Greek soil: mathematics and geometry, medicine, astronomy, rhetoric, philosophy and logic, and the theories of the atom and evolution. Also quite evident was the great leap in the 'consciousness' of the Greek people, with the reluctant creation of a democratic state in Athens and widespread ownership of land by the masses. The Greek thinkers were consumed with obtaining new information and ideas, and collected philosophy from all the known world at the time, including the near eastern Hindu influences and the ancient Egyptian religions and mystery cults. The religion in the Greek world consisted of a wide range of city and personal dieties, oracles, and superstition; and lacked a unified priest class to stifle expression. Every possible contradiction and human character defect that exists today was brutally apparent in the governmental leadership and Gods of the ancient Greek world. |
| 3 | It is amazing that the arts flourished so dynamically considering the warfare and internal political strife so prevalent at the time. From the defeat of the Persians by a united Greece until the self-defeating Peloponnesian War with Sparta, grew an educated culture captivated with the ideas of beauty, perfection, and the ultimate truths of the universe itself. The focus of this paper will be Plato's views on art, beauty, and the ideal form; as well as some of the circumstances of Greek society which allowed such freedom of expression and experimentation to occur. |
| Plato's Life | |
| 4 | Plato was born in 427 BCE in Athens to an aristocratic family with anti-democratic sympathies, and his actual name was Aristocles, meaning "the best and renouned." 1 The great builder and patron of the arts, Pericles, had just died, and Athens contained some of the greatest art Greece had ever produced. When he was 23, his family was involved with the Peloponnesian War and surrender of Athens to Sparta, as well as the rise and support of the dictatorship which immediately followed the war. Soon afterwards came the restoration of democracy, and the scapegoat trial and death of Socrates, which was to leave a lasting impression all through Plato's life and work. In his dialogues, often the main character is a fictionalized Socrates who questions some unwitting man or group about the nature of reality or some other esoteric topic. Plato was an active teacher and philosopher until his death in 347 BCE. The 'Golden Age' of Greece died with Socrates 2 , and Plato was sharply aware of the failures of the democratic government and declining moral activities of the leaders. |
| 5 | Plato traveled widely in his early years: Megara, Cytene, and then to Egypt to study math. In 395 BCE he went back to Athens, and in 394 BCE he fought in Corinth. Plato next went to study Pythagorean philosophy with Archytas at Taras, and stopped by Mt. Edna in Sicily. In Syracuse, he was sold into slavery, ransomed, and was safely back in Athens in 386 BCE. Plato's friends raised 3000 drachmas to pay back a man named Anniceris for the ransom money, but Anniceris refused; and subsequently they used the funds to buy Plato "a suburban recreational grove named from its local god Academus; and there Plato founded the university that was destined to be the intellectual center of Greece for 900 years." 3 The philosophy and writings of Plato have influenced world leaders throughout history, including Alexander the Great who eventually conquered Greece. |
| Athenian Culture and Religion | |
| 6 | Greece was a nation of trading, made up of independent city states. The Greeks conquered key shipping lanes, and required high taxes from its weaker 'allies'. These fees were used for the intensive and extravagant building programs of Pericles, including the projects on the Acropolis and expanding the sanctuaries of the gods, such as the Erechtheion. The Erechtheion is an example of Greek architectural experimentation, since it uses six caryatids, or sculpted figures, instead of columns. However impressive Pericles' building program was, it helped foster resentfulness and contributed to revolution in outlying states, which the Athenians were unable to control, and was partially responsible for the subsequent Spartan invasion. 4 |
| 7 | Yet somehow in between all the wars and political maneuvering, democracy was established by the increasingly rich merchant class, and the arts flourished. 5 Free men were expected to participate in government, and fulfill many roles. According to William Hale, "the Athenian himself was largely taken up with the everyday pursuit of what we would call the ideal of the all-around man." 6 Sports became a pseudo-religion to many Athenians, with much energy devoted to the pursuit of athletic contests. Will Durant states, "religion failed to unify Greece, but athletics- periodically- succeeded." 7 An example of the young, athletic, and confident ideal can be seen in the bronze statue named the Young Warrior, which shows a muscular man who is ready to accomplish whatever he started out to do. The Greeks admired a stylized portrayal of their athletes and warriors, showing strength and balance mixed with a naturalistic, shifting pose to convey movement. |
| 8 | The freedom enjoyed by Athenian men, the "poetic imagination at work in Greek religion, ...leisure to appreciate and the wealth to accumulate beautiful things", 8 along with a cultural desire to experience new ideas led the Greeks to create new, more naturalistic styles of art. There were few specialized professions, and "their soldiers and their sailors and their politicians and their men of affairs wrote their poetry and carved their statues and thought out their philosophy." 9 The inscriptions on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi sum up the Greek standards of andreia (temperance) and meden agan (nothing in excess). 10 |
| 9 | The Greek Athenian did not have an office to go to, or a daily standard job. Will Durant states, "to the Greek the best life is the fullest one, rich in health, strength, beauty, passion, means, adventure, and thought. Home is where they sleep; they live in the market place, in the Assembly, in the Council, in the courts, in the great festivals, athletic contests, and dramatic spectacles that glorify their city and its gods." 11 Business was conducted in public meeting places, and Athenians enjoyed the vast public markets, courtyards of temples, and outdoor gymnasiums and theaters. |
| 10 | Every family, each city and state had their own gods, and "the participation in the worship of the god was the sign, the privilege, and the requisite of citizenship." 12 The sculpture of Greek temples showed various mythological themes of their gods, often at war. The frieze Athena Attacking the Giants on the altar from Pergamon, Turkey is one example of the sky gods of Olympia fighting the earth gods, including the figure of the earth goddess Ge bursting up from below the ground. Another example of a mythological narrative is the Battle between the Gods and the Giants of the Siphnian Treasury, from the Sanctuary of Apollo, at Delphi. This drama shows several layers of figures, foreshortening, and heavy undercutting for tense shadows. Vase painting also depicts gods in motion, with the red figure depiction of Artemis Slaying Actaeon. The dying Actaeon is shown twisting in agony as dogs rip his flesh, while the off-balance goddess Artemis cooly prepares to shoot him. These type of sculptures and paintings evoke stong emotions, and the Greeks were constantly reminded of the gods in public and in their homes. |
| Plato's Philosophy of Art | |
| 11 | Plato was first of all a teacher, interested in igniting independent thought in all areas of life. He delved into discovering the essence of ideas, always trying to discover unchanging Truth. Geometry held a special allure for him, and was part of his Academy curriculum. Will Durant shows how Plato had a full understanding of other philosophies: "At every turn he [Plato] takes from him [Pythagoras]- in his scorn of democracy, his yearning for a communistic aristocracy of philosopher-rulers, his conception of virtue as harmony, his theories of the nature and destiny of the soul, his love of geometry, and his addiction to the mysticism of number." 13 Plato was able to integrate philosophy of all aspects of life, and tried to get men to rise above their passions and base emotions by thinking logically and moderately. |
| 12 | He wrote the various Dialogues over the course of his life, with the most famous, The Republic, completed about 421 or 411 BCE. The 10 books of The Republic discuss such varying topics as a utopian society loosely based on Sparta, the education and training of young political leaders, justice, and the theories of forms and knowledge. The final book in The Republic, Book X, discusses some of his ideas towards art. Of course, there are references to art and ideal beauty in other Dialogues. For example, in the Dialogue of Hippias Major, Plato offers a definition of beauty: "...that which is both profitable and pleasurable..." 14 And in the Symposium he states, "...that beyond the world of appearances there is an ideal Beauty worthy of being loved above everything else. This and this alone is capable of satisfying the philosophical passion." 15 Also, in the Philebus, Plato talks about the higher truth of beauty, "true beauty... is intellectual rather than physical; the figures of geometry are 'eternally and absolutely beautiful', and the laws whereby the heavens are made are fairer than the stars." 16 |
| 13 | Plato was concerned about the emotional impact of art, and called artists "imitators". He wrote, "...painting and imitation as a whole produce work that is far from the truth, namely, that imitation really consorts with a part of us that is far from reason, and that result of their being friends and companions is neither sound or true." 17 In Book X Plato questions, "Then wouldn't you call someone whose product is third from the natural one an imitator?" 18 Plato explains that this realization, the "third removed from the truth" means that a god created a natural object, the craftsman copies or makes a similar object, and finally the painter or artist makes a copy or illusion of the object. In the end of this argument, Plato dismisses Homer and other artists as having "no worthwhile knowledge of the things he imitates, that imitation is a kind of game and not something to be taken seriously..." 19 Again, Plato is trying to get men to see and examine their lives, not live entirely to seek the pleasures and catharsis that the arts- music, poetry, sculpture, painting- temporarily bring. |
| 14 | Another idea The Republic shows quite clearly is the 'proper' place for all forms of art in Plato's utopian philosopher-king society. According to Plato, he would impose "sweeping reforms in the domain of the arts...music will be banned, as will all these disconcerting tragedies and comedies so popular with the Athenians but which either make men suffer too vicariously or laugh too outrageously." 20 An example of art based on the legends of Homer can be found on the red figure vase painting of Odysseus and the Cyclops, which depicts the efforts of the main character to blind the cyclops Polyphemus. This vase was experimental in how the artist attempted to show depth by positioning the various members of the story around and behind each other, while twisting and pushing to show movement, and placing the figures unevenly around the vase. Yet, as Plato points out, there is nothing in this type of art to cause a person to reflect on higher truths. But this view was largely ignored by the patrons of the ancient world who continued to support art that existed simply to be beautiful, without having any other purpose or function. |
| 15 | Plato then further states the "pleasure and pain will be kings in your city instead of law or the thing that everyone has always believed to be best, namely, reason." 21 Plato is so succinct and direct regarding the censorship of art for the good of the state that his views should be taken literally, instead of as satire. Plato obviously believed in curtailing the very freedom of expression that allowed him to write his Dialogues. He felt that the leaders of his utopia would be properly trained in philosophy to discern the correct art to be created, namely art which supports a rational and virtuous life. |
| Summary | |
| 16 | Considering the background of Athenian society, with all of the wars and hypocrisy prevalent, Plato seemed compelled to motivate men to reason on all aspects of their lives. Plato understood human nature, with its love of pleasure and narrow self-interests; and continued to preach philosophy to those who would listen. The study of Truth, including virtue and beauty, was a worthy exercise for any man. And in keeping with this ideal, Greek artists created vast temples displaying a sense of proportion, balance, and strength as portrayed by the Acropolis complex in Athens including the Parthenon. Gifted and technically superb sculptors and workshops created forms which seem to be on the verge of movement as shown in the Diskobolos and the Young Warrior. Greek artists and patrons were seeking fresh ways of expression which allowed experimentation and change to occur. |
| 17 | Plato's idea of a Spartan utopia seems harsh compared to the relative liberty he enjoyed in Athens, and yet the hollow democracy of his day which allowed freedoms to be abused seemed to show that his fellow citizens were incapable of self-government. Without honorable and virtuous men to lead Athens, men who refused bribery and self-promotion, the city was susceptible to decay and decline. History proves, however, that communist-style governments suffer the same vulnerabilities as governments everywhere. Government by the few almost always leads to tyranny, since the most able-bodied individuals seldom seek public office. It is to Plato's credit, however, that he was inspired to attempt to define a culture where public good was weighed carefully against individual rights and freedoms. Even in curtailing the arts and poetry, Plato shows his willingness to listen to arguments in favor of it: "Then we'll allow its defenders... to speak in prose on its behalf and to show that it not only gives pleasure but is beneficial both to constitutions and to human life. Indeed, we'll listen to them graciously, for we'd certainly profit if poetry were shown to be not only pleasant but also beneficial." 22 Plato was always ready to hear a good argument. |
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2 Ibid, 455. 3 Ibid, 510. 4 Donald E. Strong, The Classical World (New York, 1965), 63. 5 Ibid, 11. 6 Wm. H. Hale, The Horizon Book of Ancient Greece (New York, 1965), 275. 7 Durant, The Life of Greece , 211. 8 Payton E. Richter, Perspectives in Aesthetics (New York, 1967), 2. 9 Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way (New York, 1958), 118. 10 Durant, The Life of Greece , 296. 11 Ibid, 298. 12 Ibid, 175. 13 Ibid, 166. 14 Richter, Perspectives in Aesthetics , 3. 15 Ibid, 3. 16 Durant, The Life of Greece , 518. 17 Plato/translated by G.M.A. Grube, The Republic- Book X (Indiana, 1992), 274. 18 Ibid, 268. 19 Ibid, 273. 20 Richter, Perspectives in Aesthetics , 4. 21 Plato, The Republic- Book X , 278. 22 Ibid, 279. Nominated and Edited by Nora Brodnicki, Art History Instructor
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