Plato's Perception Of Art: A Comparative Analysis

Since the ancient times, how to mark a work as an artwork has always been a matter of discussion. Many philosophers have thought about art, identified the concept of art and classified art according to their competence. For example, Plato based art on the term ‘real’ in terms of utilizing, producing and reproducing the reality. According to Plato’s claim an artwork was nothing else but a ‘mimesis’ of the real world objects therefore, it had a lower value. It was a matter of existence in a way: God created man and the nature, man used the nature to create objects and what man and nature produced was reproduced. Actually, the theory of mimesis went back to Heraclitus (535-475 B.C) who admitted that art was obviously the imitation of nature.

They regarded painting as a means of pleasure whereas architecture useful. Therefore, arts like politics for the peace of the community were to be dealt with primarily and politicians were highly respected.

On the other hand, art like painting were regarded as unnecessary and useless, thus, painters were held in disrespect. In the 2nd century AD, every branch of science and humanities was named as arts and unfortunately, ‘art’ was still not in the status of what it is today. Perception of art was shaped according to the production type. Providing that, the production of art was brought out by physical effort, this kind of art was regarded as ‘vulgar’ or humble. For instance, art of painting was regarded as a vulgar art; whereas, subjects like geometry and mathematics which were believed to be the only ones requiring mental effort and intellectual quality were called as ‘liberal’ arts, regarded as superior to the vulgar arts. In antiquity, ‘liberal’ was used as ‘suitable for free individuals who were elite politicians. Galen (129-216 AD) was the first philosopher to use the term ‘liberal’ and the classification of art as liberal and vulgar.

In late 19th century Paris, ‘Impressionism’ shone out as a completely different style of art all about showing motion and capturing sun light in paintings. Up to the birth of Impressionism, painting was taken very seriously with regards to the content of religion, history and portraits. Painters used to paint indoors whereas impressionist painters preferred and encouraged painting outdoors to closely feel the real landscape. And also, they never bothered with all the detail instead quickly captured what they were impressed by essence of a particular moment of impression. The impressionist painters were Manet, Monet and Renoir. There were some other painters who started art as impressionist at first, however, bored with the limit and changed their style that would call as ‘Post-Impressionism’. These painters were Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin. They used shiny colours within deep expressions. Symbolism (1880-1900) was a style based on reflecting spiritual, mystic, secret and emotional experience with using symbols. As one of the best symbolist painters, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes described legendary figures, subjective matters