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Plato and Aristotle as critics of Greek artT. B. L. WebsterPublished online: 22 Jul 2008.

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PLATO AND ARISTOTLE AS CRITICSOF GREEK ART1

BY

T. B. L. WEBSTER

Athens in the fourth century before Christ was not by modernL standards a large city. I think of it as more like Oxford than

London (and you perhaps think of it as more like Stavanger thanOslo). In such a city thinkers and artists could not be far apart,and the connecting links of talk, gossip, and rumour must havebeen quicker and more effective than modern methods of com-munication through the radio and the newspaper. Ancient Athenshad a small, intermingling society of highly intelligent people andthe thinker could not be blind to what the artist was doing nor couldthe artist be deaf to what the thinker was saying. My object here isto trace in general outline the interchange of ideas between fourthcentury artists on the one hand and on the other Plato and Aristotle

From the time of Simonides (and probably much earlier) theGreeks were convinced that painting and poetry were parallelactivities, and if we can trace the history of dramatic criticism anddrama through the fourth century we may find guiding lines whichwill help us to understand the much more fragmentary criticismof art. Very briefly the story runs like this: first, in the early fourthcentury Plato, while fully recognising the possibility of educationalliterature, banished Greek tragedy from his ideal city for threereasons; it could not give knowledge of the same kind as thephilosopher; its gods and heroes behaved in ways unworthy oftheir superior rank; it appealed to the irrational part of the mindso strongly that the spectator became like the characters on thestage. At this time Euripidean influence on tragedy was extremelystrong, particularly the influence of the exciting melodramas.Secondly, when Aristotle first came to Athens in 367, the rhetorical

1 A lecture delivered at the University of Oslo on the 11th of April, 1951.

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Plato and Aristotle as Critics of Greek Art 9

poets Astydamas and Theodektes were the new stars of the tragicstage. Plato's reaction to their drama may perhaps be seen in thePhaidros when he demands the same kind of organic compositionin a tragedy as in a speech. Aristotle had known this kind oftragedy for thirty years when he wrote the Poetics, and it may beresponsible for his emphasis on organic composition, on the characterof the tragic deed and of the tragic hero, and for his conception oftragedy as a kind of rhetoric designed to arouse the emotions of pityand fear in the audience (responsible also for his omission of mostthat we consider most valuable in classical Greek tragedy). UnlikePlato Aristotle justified tragedy as politically desirable and canonisedClassical tragedy so successfully that we know nothing of laterAthenian tragic poets. But if the Poetics killed new tragedy, its rulesdid in fact assist the birth of New Comedy. Finally, the Poetics isboth itself based on scholarship and heralded Alexandrian scholarship.

A somewhat similar sequence can be seen in art criticism. In theRepublic, and particularly in the tenth book, Plato equates dramaticpoetry with illusionistic and emotional art. 'The dramatic poet', hesays,1 'may rightly be called the complement of the painter. He islike him in that his creations bear little relation to the truth, andin the fact that he is concerned with a part of the soul which isnot the best.' The two points are closely connected: the painter'screations 'bear little relation to truth' because his new mastery oftechnique enables him to represent men and things as they appearat a particular moment, and these particular appearances are forPlato the copy of a copy of the truth. The new technique isdirected at 'a part of the soul which is not the best' both becauseit creates an illusion of reality which reason aided by a measuringrod can show to be a sham, and because it can represent emotionsrealistically: the subjects of contemporary painting (and being aGreek Plato thinks primarily of paintings of human beings) 'shownone of the restraint imposed by morality or breeding'.2 Similarlyin Xenophon's Memorabilia (III, x) the possibility of expressingemotion by the treatment of the face, gestures, and posture of thefigure, is the subject which Sokrates discusses with the painterParrhasios; and Zeuxis, another painter of the late fifth and early

1 605 a. 2 401 b

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10 T. B. L.Webster

fourth century, painted Menelaos pouring libations at Agamemnon's

tomb, 'drenched in tears'.1 This kind of emotion Plato would deplore.

I give two examples of this kind of art on the human level. A grave

relief2 carved about 380 B.C. shows a comic poet; the face has no

trace of idealisation, the brows and cheeks are deeply furrowed and

the mouth drawn down at the corners; the old man is depressed

and disillusioned emotions which Plato would deplore in the

monument of a man who was evidently famous. The other is a

white lekythos painted at the end of the fifth century.3 Here we

see not only emotion but also realism in the treatment of folds and

the shading of the bodies by hatching which follows the anatomical

structure. The technical term for shading was skiagraphia : the painter

Apollodoros was called skiagraphos and was said by later critics to

have been the first to represent 'appearances';4 Zeuxis, who 'stole

his art', was credited with the discovery of light and shade. The

artists of this generation were revolutionaries and great personalities.

Plato recognises this when he reports5 the sculptors as saying that

'if Daidalos were alive now and made the kind of statues to which

he owed his glory he would be a laughing stock'. Plato uses the

technical term skiagraphia6 several times and knows that it depends

on optical illusion and juxtaposition of colours so as to produce an

effect of reality when seen from a distance, just as he knows the

variation from life-like proportions which are needed for colossal

statuary:7 particularly he thinks of mural paintings of furniture (the

kline of the tenth book of the Republic) and architecture, which

gave the illusion of greater space in a room; such, we may

conjecture, Agatharchos had painted in the house of Alcibiades.

Yet, however shocked he may have been by the emotional and

realistic art of the late fifth and early fourth century, he admits the

1 Later, in the Politikos (306 d), Plato notes that the painter can representviolent emotion; and Aristotle notes the difficulty of this (De Anim. 1, 3,406 a 27: cf. also 427 b 24).

2 Lyme Hall, Stockport: JHS 1903, pl. 13.3 Berlin F 2685. Rumpf JHS, lxvii, 11.4 species presumably translates the Greek of φαντάσματα.5 Hippias major 281 d.6 Notably Rep. 365 c, 586 b, 602 c, so also later Aristotle, Met 1024 b 23;

Rhet. 1414a8.7 Sophistes 235 d.

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Plato and Aristotle as Critics of Greek Art 11

possibility of educational art as of educational literature,1 althoughsuch art would presumably be as dead and static as the art of theEgyptians which he praises in the Laws.2 Once in the Republic hebreaks right away from the view that the picture is a copy of acopy of the truth.3 'Do you think', Sokrates asks, 'a man would bein anyway a worse painter if he painted an entirely convincingpicture of the ideal of human beauty and then could not prove thatsuch a man could exist in the real world.' Here he certainly admits•that the painter is doing something quite different from merely copyingthe phenomenal world, but the ideal picture is only introduced asan illustration of Plato's own procedure in constructing an ideal cityand the implications are not followed out. In fact the implicationsare not so disastrous for Plato's theory as they seem to be atfirst sight. The passage in the Republic is expanded by Sokrates'conversation with the painter Parrhasios (to which we have alreadyreferred): there Sokrates says 'When you are portraying fair forms'(and I suppose that he means gods and heroes rather than men)'since it is not easy to find one man who is completely faultless,you painters collect individual beauties from many different modelsand so paint whole bodies of ideal beauty'. This description of thepainter's method is clearly inspired by the story that Zeuxis, whenpainting Helen, was allowed to choose five girls as models andcombined the most beautiful features of each of them in his picture.4

In fact, therefore, the painter's creative idealism seems to have beenlimited to selection from existing reality and combination into a newwhole, but at least in this limited function of selection he stepsoutside the simple role of being a mirror, which Plato prescribesfor him in the tenth book of the Republic. Once also in this earlyperiod, in the Gorgias, he recognises that the painter like thearchitect is making an ordered composition of parts, a passage towhich I shall return later.

The art of Plato's youth and prime cannot be adequately coveredby the two epithets illusionistic and emotional (which he uses inthe Republic), and in at least one important respect may haveinfluenced Plato's own thought. We all know the healthy place5

1 Rep. 401 b. 2 656 d. 3 472 d.4 Aristotle alludes to this picture in the Poetics 1461 b 12, and Politics 1281 b 13.5 401 b.

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12 T.B. L. Webster

in the Republic, where the young dwell, profiting from every

beautiful sight and sound 'until they are brought into likeness and

friendship and harmony with fair reason', and the 'place beyond

heaven'1 in the Phaidros, where the charioteer of the mortal soul

after the greatest struggles and labours catches at most a glimpse

of Justice herself, Modesty herself, and Knowledge herself. I do

not think it is fanciful to suppose that this imagery owes something

to contemporary pictures of Herakles in the garden of the Hesperides,

in which abstract figures like Hygieia (health)2 are sometimes

substituted for one or other of the nymphs, just as we find Hygieia,

Harmonia, Eudaimonia, Eunomia, Paidia, and other personifications

among the women attendant on Dionysos and Aphrodite.3 The mortal

soul, which risks and succeeds in its perilous journey, reminds us

of the young Herakles driving to heaven with Athena as he appears

on many contemporary vases.4 Plato here .clothes his thought in

forms which we know from contemporary art; the artists in their

turn express the bliss, perfection, and detachment of the philosopher's

god in their smiling, young, detached figures of Apollo, Hermes,

or Dionysos. But this interaction between artist and philosopher

takes us beyond the legitimate bounds of our subject.

For twenty years, from 367 to 347, Plato and Aristotle were

working together in-the Academy. It will, therefore, be convenient to

consider with the critical views found in the later Platonic dialogues

the echoes and developments of the same views in Aristotle, reserving

for later discussion the ideas which seem to be distinctively

Aristotelian. In the Laivs5 Plato states the necessary pre-requisites

for literary and artistic criticism. The passage comes after a discussion

of the effects of mousike in education, an effect which is as powerful

as the influence of good .or bad friends. What is to be the standard?

Not the pleasure of the audience because different sections of the

audience would make different choices (a passage6 echoed recently

by Mr. F. L. Lucas' theory that the effect of a book is a compound

of author's mind and reader's), but the education of the audience.

The basic standard is goodness of subject matter, as in the early

books of the Republic. But here the standards of criticism are

1 248. 2 e.g. Meidias ptr., London Ε 224; Beazley, ARV 831/1.3 Cf. my Interplay, 9f. 4 e.g. Kadmos ptr., Munich 2360, ARV 805/1.5 668-9. 6 Laws 658. Lucas, Literature and Psychology, 205.

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Plato and Aristotle as Critics of Greek Art 13

expressly extended to art and the attack in the tenth book of theRepublic is forgotten. The pleasure aroused by a work of art is aconcomitant, in which Plato is not interested. The true critic mustknow first what the subject of the painting or sculpture is; then hemust further know the proportions and the composition and thecolours and the shapes; only then 'if we know that the painting orsculpture represents a man and if the artist has given him all hisparts and the right colours and shapes' can we say whether thework is beautiful or in what way it falls short of beauty. In theKritias1 Plato makes essentially the same point in a rather differentway: we know our own bodies and therefore have quite differentstandards for judging paintings of gods or men and for judgingpaintings of landscape, for which in our absence of knowledge weare quite satisfied with a vague and illusionistic shading (skiagraphia):an admirable example is provided by the Pompeian picture of Ioand Argos, which probably goes back to a contemporary originalby Nikias.2

For Plato the work of art is still tied fast to its subject matter,and the relation between them is expressed as mimesis (of which'reproduction' is a loose and very unsatisfactory translation), but inthe Laws he mentions these three standards of criticism, whichare interpreted rather differently by Aristotle — recognisability,proportions, and composition. Aristotle takes over the conceptionof mimesis3 in the general sense in which Plato uses it here inthe Laws. The meaning is much wider than 'dramatic presentation',its meaning in the earlier books of the Republic, and has lost thestigma which attaches to it in the tenth book of the Republic. Itis accepted now as the function of art, literature, and music, butis never defined and has such a wide range of meanings that arealistic portrait of a contemporary, an idealised conception of a god,or even a tune calculated to inspire a particular emotion can allbe quoted as instances. At the beginning of the Poetics epic poetry,tragedy, comedy, prose dialogues, dithyramb, flute-playing and lyre-playing as well as the plastic arts are all called mimesis. ForAristotle the act of mimesis and the consequent delight of theaudience are both rooted in human nature. Thus he gives mimesis

1 107 b. 2 Pfuhl, MUZ fig. 646. 3 Poetics 1447 a 18.

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14 T.B.L. Webster

a sanction: it is a fundamental and distinctive human activity anda valid method of obtaining knowledge.1 Although this position isnot incompatible with the tenth book of the Republic, it shows acomplete change of emphasis.

For art Aristotle gives two interesting examples, which can berelated to contemporary artistic practice. First,2 he notes that aportrait in white gives much more pleasure than a meaninglesscollection of even the most beautiful colours. The pleasure is thepleasure of recognition, the delight of the audience in mimesis.The 'meaningless collection of the most beautiful colours' soundslike an allusion to the many coloured houses of Plato's Kritias.3 Theportrait in white has long been connected with Zeuxis' monochromataex alto, 'in which,' as Professor Rumpf4 has said, 'the painting isdone in lighter colour on a dark ground and the effect of relief isobtained.' We can appreciate the effect from Gnathia vases producedfrom the middle of the fourth century. Secondly, Aristotle quotesas evidence of the audience's delight in mimesis our joy in accuratepictures of minor animals and of dead bodies, which things giveus the reverse of pleasure when seen in actuality.5 The sculptorSilanion, who can be dated in the first half of the fourth centurymay well have been in his mind since Silanion used an alloy ofbronze with a special admixture of silver for the face of his dyingIokaste,6 but this is of course only a striking recent instance of along succession of sculptures and paintings of those killed andwounded in war and on other occasions. So also Greek art providesmany examples of minor animals, besides the noble dog and horse,but again it seems to me possible that Aristotle refers to a particularmovement in fourth century painting. The Sicyonian painter Pausias,the first expert in the comparatively new technique of encaustic,the ancient equivalent of oils, painted small pictures of flowersamong other things.7 His younger contemporary Nikias said that thepainter should not carve up his art into small subjects such asbirds and flowers;8 this is naturally supposed to be a criticism of

1 Poetics 1448 b5. 2 Poetics 1450 b2. 3 116ab.4 JHS, lxvii, 15. 5 Poetics 1448 b 11; Rhet. 1371 b6.6 Plut., Quaest. Conv. V, 1.2 (Overbeck 1354).7 Pliny, NH, xxxv, 123 (Overbeck 1760).8 Demetr., de Eloc. 76 (Overbeck 1825).

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Plato and Aristotle as Critics of Greek Art 15

Pausias. Pausias undoubtedly found these small subjects admirablefor the display of his new technique, and it seems likely that themasks, tables, mixing-bowls, musical instruments, hares, and birdswhich form the normal repertoire of Gnathia vases in the thirdquarter of the fourth century ultimately derive their inspiration fromhim.1 So the pleasure which is derived from the work of art isfurther defined in two ways: the pleasure of recognition, whichaccounts for the fact that the duller monochrome may be moreenjoyable than the coloured picture if the latter is less informative,and secondly the pleasure in execution (apergasia) which accountsfor our interest in pictures with uninteresting or even unpleasantsubjects. More important however is the sanction given to mimesisitself as a fundamental and distinctive human activity.

In the Laws Plato says also that the art critic must know theproportions and composition of the original. It is a small step totransfer these terms from the original to the work of art itself. DidPlato take it? Years before, in the Gorgias,2 he had equated pinterswith architects and shipbuilders: all are making an arrangement(taxis) in which the parts must be suited to each other so that theresult is an orderly and systematic composition. This hint, if elaborated,would have given quite a different assessment of the artist's taskfrom that in the tenth· book of the Republic, where he is onlyconcerned with the illusion created by three-dimensional paintingand says that the artist makes 'appearances', which only constitutea small part of the original. In the Phaidros3 very much the samephraseology as in the Gorgias is applied to rhetoric and a speechorganically composed of mutually harmonious parts is compared toa zoon: unfortunately there seems no method of determining whetherthis should here be translated 'picture' or 'living thing'. However,two contemporary definitions of beauty as 'measure' and 'measureand proportions' must include the work of art as well as the original.4

In the Sophistes,5 moreover, Plato makes his position clearer; hedistinguishes two forms of mimesis, 'likenesses' which reproduce theproportions and colours of the original, and 'appearances' in which

1 Perhaps also the brilliant floral ornament of contemporary Apulian redfigure vases.

2 503 e. 3 264 c. 4 Philebos 64 e; Sophistes 284 a5 235 d — 236 c.

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the proportions are varied to suit the spectator. Colossal statuaryis the obvious example of the latter kind, and we hear of colossalsculpture by both Euphranor and Lysippos at this time: Lysipposhimself claimed that he represented men as they appeared. ButPlato also includes large pictures and says that 'there is a greatdeal of this kind of thing in painting'. A later critic, as we haveseen, said that Apollodoros was the first to paint 'appearances' andwe may, therefore, reasonably extend the conception to cover three-dimensional painting in which perspective and shading constitute justsuch a variation of proportions and colours to create 'appearances'.The point for the present is that both 'likenesses' and 'appearances'have proportions and composition, the former those of the original,the latter a variation of those of the original.

Aristotle1 illustrates what Plato says here about colours when henotes that the painters put a wash of another colour over a clearercolour when they want to create the appearance of water or mist:a special case was the thin varnish which Apelles applied to hisworks after they were finished so that they gave the effect of beingseen through glass.2 Aristotle also takes over the phraseology ofthe Phaidros when he discusses the composition of incidents into atragic plot in the Poetics,3 and there the comparison to a pictureis clear. There are three points (which are repeated in slightlyvarying terms in several passages of Aristotle):4 composition, theproportional relation of the parts to each other, and size, which isto be as great as is compatible with intelligibility. Much the sameterminology is applied to beauty itself, to works of art, to poetry,and the city-state."

A similar emphasis on composition, proportions, and size may beillustrated from contemporary art. The great painter, Apelles, whoseactivity covers the second half of the fourth century and a littlemore, said that he was inferior to Melanthios of Sikyon in composition.Melanthios, (like Apelles and Pausias the painter of small encaustics)was a pupil of Pamphilos, who painted the picture of the Herakleidaimentioned in Aristophanes' Ploutos (388 B . C ) . Pamphilos, accordingto Pliny, was 'the first painter to be educated in Letters, particularlyarithmetic and geometry, and brought it about that first at Sikyon,

1 Sens. 440 a8. 2 Pliny, NH., xxxv, 97 (O. 1893). 3 1450 b 34.4 Met. 1078 a 36: Politics 1284 b 8, cf. also 1326 a 29, 1302 b 36.

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Plato and Aristotle as Critics of Greek Art 17

later in the whole of Greece, citizens' sons should be taught drawing

on boxwood and that drawing should be received into the first rank

of liberal arts'. Thus during the first half of the fourth century

Sikyonian chrestographia, which is on this evidence compounded of

clear outlines and good composition, became famous, and since we

know from Aristophanes that a picture by Pamphilos was known in

Athens as early as 388, the new clean strong style of Attic vase

painting, called from the many finds in S. Russia the Kerch style,

has naturally been thought to show its influence. I quote two

instances of good composition in the fourth century: the first is a

Kerch pelike1 of about 370 with the Calydonian boarhunt. The boar

is central with Ankaios above him and Artemis in the background;

the hunters are concentrated on the boar, and there are two other

points of interest, Atalanta with her bow on the extreme left and

Thersites surveying the scene with horror on the extreme right.

This is the beginning of a new style in vase painting, a complete

break away from the so-called rich style of the Meidias painter and

his immediate successors. My second instance is the mosaic of the

battle of Dareios and Alexander,2 copied from a four-colour painting

of about 330 B. C. ; here we can for once see the composition of

a first-rate Greek painter, and note on the one hand the skill with

which Alexander and the Persian king stand out from the massed

figures, the use of slanting spears to give depth and back boundary,

the foreshortened horse to give depth from in front, and on the

other hand the helpless treatment of the ground which recalls

Uccello. Whoever the artist was, he was a master of composition

and must have owed something to the Sikyonian school.

Pamphilos himself was taught by Eupompos who was a contemporary

of Zeuxis and Parrhasios: the sculptor, Lysippos, who, as we now

know,3 was working at least as early as 362 and possibly eight years

earlier, was inspired to start sculpting by Eupompos' remark that

nature was his teacher. Eupompos, therefore, claimed to be a realist

and Lysippos made a similar claim for himself when he said that

he represented men not as they were but as they appeared. But

Lysippos' realism, unlike the realism of the early skiagraphoi, was

1 Leningrad Β 4528: Schefold, Untersuchungen, no. 483.2 Cf. Rumpf, JHS, lxvii, 15.3 From the Pelopidas inscription, RA, xiv, 125, cf. JHS, lxvii, 109.

2 — Symbolae Osloenses. XXIX.

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18 T.B.L. Webster

combined with an interest in composition and proportions. Pliny's

confused statement that he changed the four square statues of

earlier artists on a new and untried system may probably be

interpreted as meaning that he composed for the first time three-

dimensionally and of this type of composition the Apoxyomenos is

an example. He also had a new system of proportions (symmetria)

— 'his heads were smaller, and his bodies thinner and drier, so

that his figures seemed taller'. At the same time Euphranor, who

was both painter and sculptor (he was working from at least 364

to 340), wrote a book on proportions, although later critics found

his heads, hands and feet (articuli) too large.

This evidence is enough to account for the interest in composition

and symmetry which we have found in Plato and Aristotle. Euphranor

is interesting to us in another way also. It would be rash to say

that he took to heart the criticisms of Plato in the Republic and

tried to provide the educational art which Plato required. But

according to Pliny he was the first to express the dignity of heroes

(dignitates heroum) — the Greek word is perhaps semnotes; according

to Dio Chrysostom his Hephaistos was not lame; and he himself

contrasted Parrhasios' 'rose-fed' Theseus with his own 'beef-fed'

Theseus (apud Parrhasium rosa pastum esse, suum vero carne). Thelast comparison we can see for ourselves by comparing the slim

Herakles of the Meidias painter with the beefy Herakles of a Kerch

vase of about 360. 1 Herakles and Theseus are represented as strong

men ; Hephaistos' lameness is concealed. For other gods and heroes

dignity may be attained by increasing their scale in relation to the

frame of the picture, just as in the fifth century Pheidias' Zeus at

Olympia and Athena Parthenos were set in a closely fitting framework

of architecture. At least this seems to be the method adopted in

the later Kerch vases with their assemblies of deities.2 There also

many of the figures have frontal or three quarter faces so that they

seem to be looking at the spectator, and this increases their dignity.

Here there is the quality of 'size' which Aristotle mentions in the

1 Meidias painter: New York 37. 11.23. ARV 832/6. Kerch: London Ε 227.Schefold, U., no. 170; KV p1. 7 a: CVA, p1. 93/2.

2 Cf. particularly Oxford (Al Mina), JHS, lix, 38, on which Beazley quotes theLeningrad Eleusinian pelike (Schefold, U., no. 368) and the Judgment ofParis in Athens (Schefold, U., no. 336).

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Plato and Aristotle as Critics of Greek Art 19

Poetics as one of the pre-requisites of beauty. Aristotle may havehad such pictures as Euphranor's Twelve Gods in mind when hespeaks of the superior physical beauty of the statues of the gods.1

This idealism extended also to portraiture, although at the sametime Lysistratos, the brother of Lysippos, was taking casts fromhuman faces. Aristotle2 tells us of the good portrait artists whowhile rendering the individual character of their original yet makehim more beautiful. We can illustrate this not only from the statuesof the great fifth century tragedians erected by Lykourgos in thetheatre of Dionysos but also from the rather earlier Plato by Silanionand the later statue of Aeschines.3 And when Theophrastos' flatterer

. tells his patron that his portrait is like him we may be certain thatit is an idealisation, and Theophrastos' approval of idealistic art isattested by a passage of the Magna Moralia* which probably goesback to him: 'a good painter would not gain praise unless he madeit his aim to represent the most beautiful subjects'.

The art of the fifty years, which covers the later works of Plato,the whole of Aristotle's writings, and the Characters of Theophrastos,comprised the soft beauty of Praxiteles, the dignity of Euphranor,the passion of Skopas, the realism of Lysippos, the composition ofMelanthios, the technical skill of Pausias, the idealism of Silanion,the charm of Apelles; all have their part and all have left us someecho. The Sikyonian school and Euphranor have provided us withmost illustrations for the sayings of Plato and Aristotle. Did thisnew art make the philosophers look more kindly towards artists?In the Sophistes5 Plato asks: 'Do you know any form of Enjoymentwhich is more charming and has more art in it than representationalpainting?' He goes on with the usual view that it cheats foolishchildren, but he has made an interesting admission and has usedtwo interesting words: Enjoyment (paidia) and Art ftechne). Theconception of Paidia is difficult because it is so wide and coversso many different things, such as dress and children's games andtragedy.6 In the early fourth century Paidia sits at the feet ofDionysos when he receives the victorious cast of a tragedy,7 and

1 Pol. 1254 b 34. 2 Poetics 1454 b 9. 3 Schefold, Bildnisse, 103.4 1190 a 31. 5 234 b. 6 cf. Politikos 288 c.7 Peiraeus relief. Probably also on Pronomos vase, ARV 849.

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she appears on several vases in attendance on him and Aphrodite.1

In the passage of the Laws,2 in which the standards of criticismare discussed, it is the harmless pleasure, the concomitant charmof the work of art, distinguished from its subject matter (to whichthe standards of criticism are applied), but it is also the word thatPlato uses for the myths of the Politikos and the Timaios.3 It doesnot give knowledge of the same kind as philosophy but it caninstruct those who are too young for philosophy, and this is a taskof the first importance, because the habits formed by paidia inyouth will determine the adult's attitude to law.4 To call paintinga charming form of paidia is to recognise its power. To controlthis power Plato therefore praises the static art of the Egyptians and-would impose a censorship; Aristotle more realistically recognisesmimesis as an essentially human function and a valid method ofobtaining knowledge, reserving censorship for obscene pictures notsanctified by religion.5

Plato also ascribes more art (techne) to painting than to anyother form of enjoyment. Here we may surely see a reference tothe system of proportions and the careful composition of the newartists. Techne (like Paidia) is a wide term and covers politics,law-giving, medicine, architecture, and shipbuilding as well as thefine arts. In Plato the technikos or professional has knowledge,and applies his previously learnt principles to the particular instance;he brings order into chaos for the benefit of those who are employinghim. As far as I know, the only other passage where this highstatus is expressly given to the painter is the equation of the artistwith architects and shipbuilders in the Gorgias,6 and that I suspectis due to the first impact of Sikyonian painting on Athens; in theRepublic7 the technai are divided and graded as 'using, making, andrepresenting', and painting comes at the bottom of the scale. Thesupreme technician in Plato is the demiourgos of the Timaios. To himwe can truly apply the definition of techne in the Laws:* 'offspring ofmind according to true reasoning'. In one passage' he seems atfirst sight to be a painter, but the word which Jowett translates

1 Cf. Interplay, 9. 2 667 d.3 Pol. 268 de; Tim. 59 cd cf. Schuhl, Platon et l'Art1, 62.4 Laws 797 a, cf. Rep. 424 e. 5 Pol. 1336 b 15. 6 503 e.7 601 b. 8 890 d. 9 55 c.

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Plato and Aristotle as Critics of Greek Art 21

'delineation' in fact means 'painting in different colours'; thedemiourgos makes a plastic model of the Universe and colours itwith different colours like the many coloured balls to which theearth is compared in the Phaedo.1 We can then only see a limitedchange in Plato's appreciation of sculpture and painting, limited tohis definition of beauty in the Philebos and Sophistes, the standardsof criticism in the Laws, and the admission of charm and technein the Sophistes.

Aristotle, as we have seen, appreciates idealistic art and recognisesmimesis as a natural human function. For him the world is composedof two sorts of works, the works of techne and the works of physis,and the latter are constantly explained by the analogy of the former.The analogy is often with craftsmanship rather than with art, —with the architect, the swordmaker, and the smith, — but notexclusively.2 In the discussion of Substance in the sixth book ofthe Metaphysics Aristotle's first example of matter, form, and productis bronze, the 'sensible shape', and the statue.3 Here the exampleis drawn from sculpture. So also in the discussion of the act ofgeneration Physis is not only described as a carpenter using a toolbut in certain cases as a modeller using her own hands,4 while indescribing the growth of the embryo he says:5 'everything is definedfirst by outlines, and later takes on colours, hardness, and softness,just as if nature, who constructs it, were a painter. For paintersfirst draw the lines and then cover the painted animal with colours.'Thus it is justifiable, to say that for Aristotle the sculptors andpainters rank with the other technicians, who because they arecreators provide a parallel to the creation of nature. We can, therefore,apply to them the definition of techne as 'a state concerned withmaking, involving a true course of reasoning', and this is presumablythe 'excellence in art' in virtue of which Pheidias and Polykleitosare called 'wise'.6 If we ask what the 'true cause of reasoning' is,

1 110 b.2 Architect e. g. Met. 1032 b 13; 1034 a 24; swordmaker: de gen. an. II, 1, 45,

735 a l . ; smith: Met. 1070 a22.3 1029 a 3 : again 1033 a 7, cf. also 1002 a 22, 1035 a 6. 1048 a 32, 1049 a 17;

Physics 191 a 7, 195 a 5, b 26, 201 a 24, 207 a 27.4 de gen. an. I., 32, 730 b 7 f. 5 de gen. an. II. 6, 29, 743 a 23.6 NE 1140 a 20, 1141 a 10.

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•we can answer from the texts already quoted: the choice of good

subjects, composition, proportions, and scale.

As I see it, the Sikyonian school and Euphranor provided an art

which could be interpreted as a 'true course of reasoning', a techne

in as high a sense as architecture. Aristotle saw in techne a creative

activity parallel1 to the creative activity of physis, which was his

chief concern. Therefore the products of techne including painting

and sculpture are given a much higher status by him than by Plato,

and become a legitimate subject of study for their own sake and

not only as instruments of education. Here then is the possibility

of a new.kind of art criticism which studies evolution in art just

as the biologist studies evolution in nature. For good or ill Aristotle

introduced the idea of evolution, i. e. growth to perfection, into

literary criticism. This is clear enough in the historical section of

the Poetics:2 'after it had been through many changes, tragedy stopped

changing because it had attained its own nature'. The frame-work

was, therefore, ready for a similar criticism of art and for the

scholarship on which such criticism must be based. His history of

poetry3 has the following scheme: (1) the giant Homer, who originated

tragedy and comedy, (2) the little men, who wrote epainoi and psogoi,

(3) drama divided into tragedy and comedy and each again subdivided

into (a) old tragedy with the emphasis on ethos (here something

like 'moral purpose'.) and (b) new tragedy without moral purpose

but with rhetoric, (c) old Comedy with personal abuse, (d) later

Comedy with general plots. To Homer he gives no artistic parallel,

but the ancient artists in the Topics* who had to use inscriptions

to make their subjects clear, are a fair parallel to the little men

who wrote epainoi and psogoi. Polygnotos, the great artist of the

early fifth century, is expressly equated with old tragedy and Zeuxts,

who painted at the end of the fifth century, with new tragedy.5

Pauson, who seems to have been an exact contemporary of

Aristophanes, I believe to have been equated with old Comedy;6

1 This I think is the nearest rendering of μιμεΐσθαι, in the passages whenAristotle speaks of the relation between τέχνη and φύσι; as μίμησιθς;. Phys.194 a 21, 199 a 15, meteor. 381 b 3 - 9 . 2 1449 a 15 cf. 2, 13, 1448 b 22.

3 1448 b 20f. 4 140 a 20. 5 1450 a 23.6 1448 a5, 16; Pol. 1340 a 36. cf. 1336 b 15 where obscene paintings seem to

be equated with the aischrologia which belongs to comedy.

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Plato and Aristotle as Critics of Greek Art 23

this would be natural enough if the pictures of comedy which weknow from the late fifth and early fourth century are in fact derivedfrom Pauson. To some extent then Aristotle filled in the frame-work,and late in the Poetics historical standards of criticism are introducedboth for art and poetry.1 What of the details? These were left tothe Hellenistic critics to supply and often their terminology —proportions, compositions, first discoverer, ethos, 'appearances', —remind us of Aristotle.

But let us not end wifh terminology and scholarship. In oneinstance we can perhaps see the influence of Aristotle on a painter.Apelles painted a picture of Slander. A man with large ears isseated between two women, Ignorance and False Assumption. Heholds out a hand to greet Slander, who drags with her a youngman raising his hand to heaven and invoking the testimony of thegods. Jealousy walks ahead of Slander and she is accompained byPlotting and Deception. Behind her Repentance looks back at Truthwho forms the end of the procession. The whole picture shows thesuccessive psychological states of the man who slanders and theman who listens to slander. The personified abstractions mostlyhave their place in the analysis of mental states in Aristotle's Rhetoricand Ethics, and the picture may be described as a sermon on anAristotelian text.

Thus in the small city of Athens where artist and thinker cannothave been ignorant of each other we can trace a similar sequencein the thinker's reaction to poet and artist: first rejection of realism,then a new art requiring new standards of criticism, and lastlyscholarship and inspiration.

1 1460 b 8.

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