Plato's Attitude Towards Art

Compare the Attitude of Plato and Eisenstein toward Religion and Art Ruili Ye In Sergei Eisenstein 's film October (1928), he used a baroque image of Jesus, then the scene was transferred to Hindu deities, the Buddha and the Aztec gods respectively and finally the scene was ended with a primitive idol. Through such series of shots, the editor wanted to express the sameness of all religions. Eisenstein is a master of montage, when he created a film, he tried to structure the film with a combination of some scenes which seems unrelated with each other, however, these scenes have some underlying links and it makes sense when these scenes are compared, this is also called intellectual montage

Plato argues that art is not real and art products are the imitations of the nature, which means that art is based on nature and choose the nature as the objective, which is real and not abstract. The overall attitude of Plato towards art is critical. In his opus named the Republic, many of the artistic activities are random and not serious and they are far from reflecting the truth. As for this kind of art, it is more than inauthentic, it can be regarded as harmful. In his work Ion, Plato analyzed the relationship between poet and poem. He argued that the ideas of poets come from the god and there is no need to think about the objectives they are writing about as the god will guide their minds. In fact, the creation of a poem is passive for the poets, as Plato stated, there is not any necessary motivations for the poets to produce works. This statement depreciated the artists, at that time mainly poets, regarding artists as those lack professional knowledge and would potentially mislead the public. For example, Plato even criticized Homer, the great Ancient Greek poet, he blamed that Homer was never being able to establish a power government for the country and become the legislator, nor had he ever command any battles to fight for the country. The fundamental reason for Homer’s failure is that he was always employing the bad behaviors of normal people when he described the god in his poem, which potential

It can be regarded that in the perspective of Plato, art should serve for the politics. He held that art should present the nature of things through reasonable explanations and then it can be used to know more about the society and even help modify the society. Plato’s attitude towards art seems extreme and unilateral. However, from the time where he lived and the background of that era, he was reasonable to present that standpoint. Plato was living in a slave society, at that time, people are poor and they do not have enough money to enjoy the lives. The primary task for the society at that time was to keep the stability of the country. Therefore, he held the view that art should serve foe the society in order to keep it harmony and stable. Plato favored that some literatures, or poems should be maintained and promoted which could benefit the development of the adolescents. As for the identity of a poet, the patriotism of Plato is apparent. Looking back into the attitude of Plato towards art, his standard in analyzing art products are of great benefits to the country as well to its citizens. He perused the kindness in terms of the contents in literatures, and wanted the most positive side of lives to be presented by art (Philosophy of Religion