PLATO & ARTS: THE IMITATION OF IMITATION?

But is it Art? 

By Jesenko Tesan

Plato believes art is just an imitation of an imitation. The photo is of a young girl I took in Florence in 2020. She is taking a “selfie” in front of an art exhibition (see below). The way she was taking the photo and herself in general, modern-geisha-like, melting within the Renaissance art made me think of Plato and Arts. She is producing a work of art or something like art, on her own, via a copy of a copy of a Form. The Form being herself in situ.

In The Republic Plato’s general idea is not per se against the arts and artists, but rather how arts and in particular the artists impact and change society - democracy. Art, according to Plato, is a copy. The copy of depictions of truth. In the V book of the Republic, Plato describes how humans experience the, reality, experience. Humans experience the reality as a shadow cast on a cave wall by the light of a flickering fire. (Cannot help but think about today’s social anti social media and above all video games as a shadow cast.) That is the only “reality” that is known for humans. Indeed, in all of his dialogues and finally in the Republic Plato embarks on art to teach the importance of the study, discipline, sacrifice in order to fully comprehend the power of knowledge as a key to understand the reality hiding behind the display/shadows on the wall/screen—yet, he teaches via arts technology.

One could say that all of Plato’s dialogues present a poetic artistic endeavour: technology—, to invert “shadow-depiction of real-real” as a “mirror of nature” into true human experience. This makes Plato the greatest artist and poet of them all?

 Someone is watching me and my I-phone? 

Yesterday and Tomorrow: Hungry for Technology or?