ORDER OUT OF CHAOSClassical Concepts in Art and Beauty

PLATOIdeals and Inspiration: Order out of Illusions.

Horizon Illusion

trompe l’oeil, Pompeii

Intelligible World

visible world

The Good

The Mind

The TrueThe Beautiful

Recognition of:The GoodThe True

The Beautiful

understandingreasoning

proofs

formsgeometric forms

functionsformulae

The Sunordinary thingsbeliefs

sensations

imaginings

You k

now

best

that

wh

ich

changes

least T

hat w

hich

changes le

ast is m

ost re

al

How do you know? What is real?

<3 sided figure>

illusions, shadows

<Pythagorean Theorem>instantiation

The Eye

Plato’s Simile of the Line

ideals

things

Ideals

art

instantiation

mimesis

Plato’s Simile of the Line

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.

“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

“…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

“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

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.

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, . . . ,.

Reason

Emotions

Appetites

Rulers

Soldiers

Crafts workers

Wisdom

Courage

Self-control

Justice

Plato’s Ideal Polis

TRIPARTITE SOUL

Plato’s Psychology

The Human Soul

Reason

Emotions

Appetites

Self-control–a birth of cool

Plato’s Psychology

Parthenon Metope, Centaurs and Lapiths

“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

PLATO—TEMPERANCE

Temperance (self-control) is the psychological disposition achieved when Ideal Beauty orders the soul, it is a harmony between the parts of the soul.

INSPIRATION: EMOTIONS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE

Reason

Emotions

Appetites

Reason

Emotions

Appetites

Reason

Emotions

Appetites

Reason

Emotions

Appetites

MuseAudience

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 power of music and metre they are inspired and possessed

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.

ARISTOTLEExemplars and Ethical Beauty: Order out of the Accidents of History and Nature

Laocoön

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."

—Aristotle, Poetics

CATEGORIES

Substantial Accidental

General

Being Being named ‘David’

Specific

Being Brave, Creative, & Wise

Being Human

Being a Warrior, Poet,

& King

portrayal

Depiction{

{ being David

ARISTOTLE’S POIESIS: CREATIVE MAKING

Substantial AccidentalGeneral

Having Hair

Specific

Being Brave

Being Human

Being a warrior with Short Spiky

Hair

Su

bsta

nce

Accide

nt

ARISTOTLE’S POIESIS: CREATIVE MAKING

Dying Gaul

Substance

Accident

Accident

ARISTOTLE’S POIESIS: CREATIVE MAKING

Donatello, Feast of Herod

Exemplar

History

History

…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 probably or necessarily. —Aristotle, Poetics

Ajax and Odysseus

Exemplar

History

History

Hercules killing Centaur Nessus

by Giambologna

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

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

ARISTOTLE’S POIESIS: CHARACTERS

The second thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valor … unscrupulous cleverness is inappropriate.

Brunelleschi, Sacrificeof Isaac

ARISTOTLE’S POIESIS: CHARACTERS

Ghiberti, Sacrificeof Isaac

Ghiberti, Sacrificeof Isaac Brunelleschi, Sacrificeof Isaac

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

ARISTOTLE’S POIESIS: CHARACTERS

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

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.

ARISTOTLE’S POIESIS: CREATIVE MAKING

Rising Action Falling Action

Climax

Reversal

ARISTOTLE’S POIESIS: CREATIVE MAKING

Rising Action Falling Action

Climax

Reversal

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 them happy or the opposite. —Aristotle, Poetics

ARISTOTLE’S VIRTUOUS EXEMPLARSExemplars 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.

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

Athena Parthenos Replica in Nashville

ARISTOTLE’S MAGNIFICENCE

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?