THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GREEK ART

(OR WHAT IS PLATO REACTING TO?)

REPUBLIC 10 IN ITS CULTURAL CONTEXT II

OVERVIEW

• Alternative views to Plato in Rep. 10• Poets, philosophers, sophists, et al. on art• Greek art in context

– Art and the viewer

• Art and text in combination to produce effect• Emotions, politics, erotics of Greek art

– Psychological power– Art as rhetoric– Gorgias’ aesthetics– Plato’s bugbears…?

PLATONIC AESTHETICS I• Inseparable from

– Education– Ontology– Epistemology– Psychology – Ethics & Justice– Politics

• Issues addressed elsewhere in Republic– Plato addresses legacy of poets: Homer, Hesiod, et al. – His intellectual precursors– Poets seen as teachers of religion, ethics, law

REPUBLIC 10: Critique of Mimetic Painting & Poetry

• Mimesis now rejected– Psychology, epistemology, education– Theory of Forms– Outlined in books 4-9 of Rep.

• Painting used as extensive analogy for mimetic poetry• Both media subject to Plato’s

– Ontology– Epistemology– Psychology– Ethics & Justice

REPUBLIC 10 (595-603): On Painting & Poetry

• Ontology– Painting = mimesis phantasmatos– Imitation of an appearance– Couch example and invocation of Forms

• Epistemology– Painters and poets = ignorant, so, too, their public– 3 removes from truth– User/maker/imitator argument

• Psychology– Painting plays havoc with our senses– Seductive, erotic, magical language used– Epithumetikon vs Logistikon

REPUBLIC 10 (603-607): On Epic Poetry & Tragedy

• Epistemology– Homer is no general

– No victories recorded

– How reliable a source for war???

• Psychology – Meter, harmony, music beguiles us

– Seductive, erotic, magical language used (cf. painting)

– Grief: tragedy, etc. panders to ‘irrational’, emotive elements in us

REPUBLIC 10 (605c-607): ‘The Greatest Charge’

• It corrupts the best of us (cf. painting) • NB its emotive power

• pleasure in sympathising with sufferings of others• People assimilate Homeric tragic characters’ behaviour to own lives • the more you indulge these emotions, the more you encourage them

Poets destabilise our psychological ‘order’ Justice = Psychological order Mimetic poets to be banned (!)

SOME RESPONSESPlato assumes depiction = endorsement

• does not allow for critical distance of poet and audience• Achilles presented as problematic figure in first 2 lines of Iliad

Plato does not allow for psychological complexity• demands simple didactic message• how reasonable is this?

Plato ignores moments in Homer of heroic restraint of emotion:

• Achilles and Priam again• Plato very selective in critique

Some Greek writers on art• Polyclitus

– Sculptor active c. 450-410 BC– Author of ‘Canon’– A technical treatise– Philosophical overtones?

• Empedocles• Hippias• Gorgias• Democritus• Apelles• Euphranor, et al.

– Sources in Pliny– Vitruvius

Polyclitus, Doryphorus c. 445 BC

SOME OTHER ANCIENT VIEWS

Poetry a source of pleasure in and of itself: Homer, Hesiod

Gorgias the orator and Sophist (c. 480-375 BC)• intense emotional power of poetry and artworks not necessarily bad (Encomium of Helen) • on cleverness of audience (B23) recognition of artistic fiction• tragedy involves deceit, cleverness and justice!

• Platonic objections turned on their head!

• Cf. Dissoi Logoi on painting and tragedy

Gorgias: An important precursor to Plato

• Sicilian teacher of rhetoric• Interest in forms of logos & art

– Interest in Homer & tragedy– Tragedy as form of ‘deceit’: apatê

• On tragedy: B23: ‘the deceiver is more just than the non-deceiver, and the deceived is cleverer than the non-deceived’– Cf. Simonides: Thessalians too

stupid to be deceived by him.– Cf. Dissoi Logoi

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Gorgias of Leontini, c. 480-375 BC

Gorgias: Encomium of Helen 8-14

• Psychology of logos– Instills emotions– Applies to poetry and prose– Fear, longing, desire, pity

• Cf. Aristotle on fear and pity of tragedy (Poetics)

• Works on soul like magic– Goêteia, Thelxis, Apatê– Witchcraft, beguilement, deceit– Cf. Plato in Rep. 10 on painting &

tragedy

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Helen with Erõs and Paris, c. 350 BC

Gorgias: Encomium of Helen 18

Painting, Sculpture & Psychology composite technique of painters cf. Zeuxis and Parrhasius

Art inspires same emotions as does logos longing, grief, desire (erõs) also pleasure: terpsis erotics of artworks cf. effects of Homeric poetry

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Helen with Erõs and Paris, c. 350 BC

SOME OTHER ANCIENT VIEWS

Aeschines and Isocrates (orators, active c. 410-350 BC) provide opposite evidence to Plato• people do not assimilate tragic emotions in their own lives• recognise artistic fictions and emotions

Democritus of Abdera (c. 465-380 BC)• other people’s sufferings can make us count our blessings and help• poet composes very beautifully under inspiration: enthousiasmos• Homer has a divine nature & designs a ‘cosmos’ of all kinds of words

ARISTOTLEAristotle: Plato’s greatest student and greatest critic:

Poetics defends art and poetry

Aristotle Contemplating Homer (Rembrandt, c. 1650)

Gorgias & Aristotle’s Poetics

• Plot must have elements of ‘to eikos’– Be probable, convincing– Same criterion for rhetoric: Gorgias, et al.

• Better to have ‘plausible impossibility than implausible possibility’ (Po. 1460a 26-7; 1461b 11-14; )– Gorgianic style of expression– Aristotle compares impossibly beautiful figures painted by Zeuxis

• Also encourage audience in paralogismos (Homer: 1460a 18-27)– Making false inferences; suspend disbelief– Cf. Simonides & Gorgias on apatê

• ‘Truth/reality’ no longer a criterion of art

Emotive/persuasive powers of art

• Recognised by Greeks

• Referred to in poetry, drama, philosophy, etc.– Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, Gorgias,

Socrates/Xenophon, et al.

• Esp. Plato who sees problems

• Evident through history of western art– See, e.g. D. Freedberg, The Power of Images (1989)

– Used as propaganda

– Political statements

– Abilities to delight, terrify, move, shock, arouse (erotics)

– Some examples follow…

Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii (1784)

Pablo Picasso, Guernica (1937)

Norman Lindsay (1879-1969)

Francesco de Goya, 3rd of May 1808

Goya, Disasters of War

Anavysos Kouros, c. 530 BC

• accompanied by inscription

• in hexameter (Homeric) verse

• ‘Stay by the grave of Kroisos the dead man and pity him whom once in the forefront of battle raging Ares destroyed.’

• emotive response required

• Homeric/heroic connotations

• cf. Thersites as opposite

• erotic; cf. Tyrtaeus

New York Kouros; Cleobis & Biton

Anavysos Kouros, c. 530 BC

Dexileos Monument, c. 390

• Inscription: ‘Dexileos, son of Lysanias from Thorikos, born under the archonship of Teisandros [=414/13 BC] , died under the archonship of Euboulides at Corinth as one of five cavalrymen.’

‘Phrasikleia’, c. 540 & Peplos Kore, c. 525

Inscription: ‘Grave marker of Phrasikleia. I will always be called maiden (Kore), having obtained that name instead of marriage.’

Cf. Homeric hymn to Demeter Persephone as Kore

Berlin Kore, c. 580

Hegeso Monument, c. 400 BC

Ilissos Monument, c. 360 BC

White-ground lekythos, c. 440

Exekias, Suicide of Ajax, c. 530

Sacrifice of Iphigeneia, Pompeii, c. 100 BC

•In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Iphigeneia is compared to a painting

‘Strikes her killers with an arrow of pity from her eye.’

Cf. Timanthes’ painting and grades of pity on characters

Zeus & Ganymede, c. 480

Nike of Paionios, c. 420 BC

Temple of Athena Nike, c. 410

Classical Athens: Art, Eros & Power

Theatre of Dionysos Acropolis, Athens

Cf. Pericles: ‘Look on her power and become a lover of the city.’ (Thucydides)

Classical Athens: Art, Eros & Power

Theatre of Dionysos Acropolis, Athens

Cf. Pericles: ‘Look on her power and become a lover of the city.’ (Thucydides)

Myron, Discobolos, (orig.c. 460)•Lucian (2nd century AD): Lover of Lies•

•Discussion of statue as combination of different poses

•Sequence of movements

•Not actual appearance, but conveys kinetic energy

A form of artistic ‘deceit’?

Apatê?Roman copy

Cf. Other Media

•Lucian (2nd century AD)Lover of Lies

•Discussion of statue as combination of different poses

•Sequence of movements

•Not actual appearance, but conveys kinetic energy

A form of artistic ‘deceit’?

Apatê?Panathenaic amphora, c. 530 BC

Artemision god, Zeus (?), c. 460

Summary: Art as heightened representation

• Erotics & desire; pity & longing: pothos• ‘deceptive’ aspects (apatê); a ‘sweet sickness’• Cultivates specific modes of viewing

– A visually persuasive & powerful image– Not just an imitation of an appearance– Gorgianic aesthetics anticipates Aristotle– Cf. Plato’s reaction in Republic 10!

• Culture of artistic fiction and emotional engagement with art objects– Anticipates much in Aristotle’s Poetics

ARISTOTLEAristotle: Plato’s greatest student and greatest critic:

Poetics defends art and poetry

Aristotle Contemplating Homer (Rembrandt, c. 1650)