5. Intelligible
World
visible world
The
Good
The Mind
The True
The Beautiful
Recognition of:
The Good
The True
The Beautiful
understanding
reasoning
proofs
forms
geometric forms
functions
formulae
ordinary things The Sun
beliefs
sensations
imaginings
You know best that which changes least
That which changes least is most real
How do you know? What is real?
<3 sided figure>
illusions, shadows
<Pythagorean Theorem>
instantiation
The Eye
Plato’s Simile of the Line
6. Mimesis is, according to Plato, a copy of a copy of an ideal, thrice
removed from the truth. It mimics some of the properties of the original
without including the ideal function.
ideals
things
Ideals
art
instantiation
mimesis
Plato’s Simile of the Line
7. “I do not mean by beauty of form such
beauty as that of animals or pictures,
which the many would suppose to be my
meaning; but understand me to mean
straight lines and circles, and the plane
and solid figures which are formed out of
them by turning lathes and rulers and
measures of angles; for these I affirm to
be not only relatively beautiful, like other
works of art, but they are eternally and
abstractly beautiful.”
–Plato Philebus 51c
Uccello’s Chalice
8. “…sculpture and painting are in
truth sisters, born from one
father, that is, design, at one
and the same birth, and have
no precedence one over the
other…”
“…design, which is their
foundation, nay rather, the very
soul that conceives and
nourishes within itself all the
parts of man's intellect, was
already most perfect before the
creation of all other things,
when the Almighty God, having
made the great body of the
world and having adorned the
heavens with their exceeding
bright lights, descended lower
with His intellect into the
clearness of the air and the
solidity of the earth…”
—Vasari
Michelangelo Battle of Cascina
9. “Perspective is to painting
what the bridle is to the
horse, the rudder to a ship.”
—Leonardo
Leonardo Figure Studies
“There are three aspects
to perspective. The first
has to do with how the
size of objects seems to
diminish according to
distance: the second, the
manner in which colors
change the farther away
they are from the eye; the
third defines how objects
ought to be finished less
carefully the farther away
they are.”
—Leonardo
10. PLATO’S IDEAL BEAUTY
Ideals, with a capital ‘I’, sometimes called Forms are,
according to Plato, are what is real, and are eternal and
unchanging. There are three Ideals: Goodness, Truth, and
Beauty. Examples of lesser ideals, with a small ‘i’, might be
ratios, formulae and geometric forms. Beauty, as an Ideal, is
the abstract, intelligible value by which the cosmos
(including appearances, things, and forms) are
constituted, ordered, and made intelligible.
11. PLATO’S IDEAL BEAUTY
Examples of Beauty as an Ideal are found in architecture and
architectonics, perspective, geometric shapes, and compositional
forms and ratios such as the Golden Mean. The Golden Mean,
considered one of the perfect ratios, represented by a point on a line
segment (C) that divides it such that the smaller segment (A) stands
in relation to the larger segment (B) in the same relation that the
larger segment stands to the whole (A:B = B:C). Other forms put
forth as candidates for Ideal Beauty are Platonic Solids and the
Fibonacci Sequence. Platonic Solids are the pyramid, cube,
octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron. Each of these have
faces that are identical, regular polygons meeting at the same three-dimensional
angles. The Fibonacci Sequence is a sequence of
numbers each of which is the sum of the two previous numbers. 1,
1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, . . . ,.
12. Reason
Emotions
Appetites
Plato’s Psychology
TRIPARTITE
SOUL
Rulers
Soldiers
Crafts workers
Wisdom
Courage
Self-control
Justice
Plato’s Ideal Polis
The Human Soul
13. Reason
Emotions
Appetites
Plato’s Psychology
Self-control–a
birth of cool
Parthenon Metope, Centaurs and
Lapiths
14. “God devised and bestowed upon us
vision to the end that we might behold
the revolutions of Reason in the Heaven
and use them for the revolvings of the
reasoning that is within us, these being
akin to those, the perturbable to the
imperturbable; and that, through learning
and sharing in calculations which are
correct by their nature, by imitation of
the absolutely unvarying revolutions of
the God we might stabilize the variable
revolutions within ourselves.”
–Plato Timaeus 47c
Polykleitos’ Doryphorus
16. For all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by art,
but because they are inspired and possessed. And as the Corybantian revellers
when they dance are not in their right mind, so the lyric poets are not in their right
mind when they are composing their beautiful strains: but when falling under the
Reaso
n
Emotions
Appetites
power of music and metre they are inspired and possessed
Reason
Emotions
Audience
Appetites
Reason
Emotions
Appetites
Reason
Emotions
Appetites
Muse
INSPIRATION: EMOTIONS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE
17. PLATO—INSPIRATION
Inspiration, a form of mimesis involving a psychological state
in which, according to Plato, emotions are transmitted from
one person to another without transmission of knowledge.
19. ARISTOTLE’S
POIESIS: CREATIVE
MAKING
It is clear, then, from what we have said that the poet must be a "maker" not of verses but of stories,
since he is a poet in virtue of his "representation," and what he represents is action. Even supposing he
represents what has actually happened, he is none the less a poet, for there is nothing to prevent some
actual occurrences being the sort of thing that would probably or inevitably happen, and it is in virtue of
that that he is their “maker."
Laocoön
—Aristotle, Poetics
20. ARISTOTLE’S POIESIS:
CREATIVE MAKING
CATEGORIES
Substantial Accidental
General
Being
Being named
‘David’
Depiction {
Specific
Being Brave,
Creative, &
Wise
Being Human
Being a Warrior,
Poet, & King
portrayal
{ being David
21. ARISTOTLE’S POIESIS:
CREATIVE MAKING
Substantial Accidental
General
Having Hair
Specific
Being Brave
Being Human
Being a warrior with
Short Spiky
Hair
Substance
Dying Gaul
23. Exemplar
History
History
Ajax and Odysseus
…poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry
tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts…. By a "general
truth" I mean the sort of thing that a certain type of man will do or say either
25. ARISTOTLE’S
POIESIS:
CHARACTERS
The objects the imitator represents
are actions, with agents who are
necessarily either good men or
bad—the diversities of human
character being nearly always
derivative from this primary
distinction, since the line between
virtue and vice is one dividing the
whole of mankind. It follows,
therefore, that the agents
represented must be either above
our own level of goodness, or
beneath it, or just such as we are….
—Aristotle, Poetics Massacchio, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden
26. ARISTOTLE’S
POIESIS:
CHARACTERS
In respect of Character there are
four things to be aimed at. First, and
most important, it must be good.
Now any speech or action that
manifests moral purpose of any kind
will be expressive of character: the
character will be good if the purpose
is good.
—Aristotle, Poetics
Donatello, Penitent Magdalene
27. ARISTOTLE’S POIESIS: CHARACTERS
Brunelleschi, Sacrificeof Isaac
Ghiberti, Sacrificeof Isaac
The second thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valor
… unscrupulous cleverness is inappropriate.
29. ARISTOTLE’S POIESIS: CHARACTERS
Thirdly, character must be true to
life: for this is a distinct thing from
goodness and propriety, as here
described. The fourth point is
consistency: for though the
subject of the imitation, who
suggested the type, be
inconsistent, still he must be
consistently inconsistent.
Drunken Satyr or Barberini Faun
30. POIESIS:
CHARACTERS
Character is that which reveals
choice, shows what sort of
thing a man chooses or avoids
in circumstances where the
choice is not obvious, so those
speeches convey no character
in which there is nothing
whatever which the speaker
chooses or avoids.
–Aristotle, Poetics
31. ARISTOTLE’S EXEMPLARS
Exemplars are a form of depiction which may be composed of
an agglomeration of features from various individuals that
mimic the essential traits of the species and are free from
accidental defects that can mar individuals. For Aristotle,
beauty is exhibited in exemplars because they are more
than merely agglomerations of properties, but also exhibit
an living harmony which Aristotle called organic unity.
33. ARISTOTLE’S POIESIS: CREATIVE MAKING
Climax
Reversal
Rising Action Falling Action
The most important of these is the arrangement of the incidents, for tragedy is
not a representation of men but of a piece of action, of life, of happiness and
unhappiness, which come under the head of action, and the end aimed at is the
representation not of qualities of character but of some action; and while
character makes men what they are, it's their actions and experiences that make
34. ARISTOTLE’S VIRTUOUS
EXEMPLARS
Exemplars are not static but are about actions which reveal the
character of individuals and illustrate the excellences of a
species, or virtues. For Aristotle, virtues are excellences which lie
between two extremes called vices, just as courage lies between
cowardice and foolhardiness. When exemplars exhibit organic
unity they are beautiful and may evoke an emotional purging in the
audience, called catharsis.
Examples of virtuous exemplars can be found in basic human
actions such as laughing, crying, and struggling in figurative
paintings, sculptures, and drama. The Four Cardinal Virtues are
Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, and Justice and Aristotle (among
others) thought they were exemplary human virtues.
35. The defect corresponding to the
magnificent disposition is called
Paltriness, and the excess
Vulgarity.… The latter vices do
not exceed by spending too
great an amount on proper
objects, but by making a great
display on the wrong occasions
and in the wrong way.
The magnificent man is an
artist in expenditure: he can
discern what is suitable, and
spend great sums with good
taste.
–Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
IV.4-5
ARISTOTLE’S
MAGNIFICENCE
Athena Parthenos Replica in Nashville
36. REFLECTIONS
What aesthetic terms would you use to describe the Viet Nam War Memorial?
The film?
Where would Plato place the Viet Nam War Memorial on his Simile of the Line?
Where would you?
Is the Viet Nam War Memorial mimetic or inspirational, in Plato’s senses of the
terms?
Are the added statues by Frederick Hart exemplary, in Aristotle’s sense of the
term?
Maya Lin describes a “journey” from looking up the name of a loved one to
finding it on the Memorial—how does this compare to Aristotle’s concept of plot
or catharsis?
How does the film compare to Aristotle’s concept of plot? Is Maya Lin
exemplary?
