While reading Wartenberg's "The Nature of Art" chapter on Plato's view on art I found myself disagreeing wholeheartedly with Plato/Socrates' view that "Art is dangerous"
"art constitutes a challenge to philosophy, which also seeks to influence people, but by rational argument rather than emotional appeal. The arts are to be banished so that the attitudes and actions of the citizens will not be tainted by inappropriate influences"
"Art is dangerous, for its appeal to the irrational distracts us from the legitimate claims of reason."
Plato's view is centered around an idea that art distracts from philosophy, things of reason, and true knowledge, and is therefore dangerous. An artist's purpose is to spread an emotion or experience, through a medium for their own or for others' benefit. This emotion or experience, this sensation behind the oils on a canvas or within the marble of a statue is a piece of knowledge in its own right. Art is a medium of knowledge, not a distraction from it. One can gaze upon a Rembrandt and come away with a perspective previously unknown. Art does not blind us to knowledge, it opens our eyes to entirely new viewpoints.
Plato argues that art is an "imitation of an imitation", that a painting is just a copy of reality, and therefore a distraction from reality. An artist may paint a landscape, but it is not merely an imitation of what the artist sees before him, but also an imitation of the personal feeling and sensation involved in witnessing the beauty of the landscape in that moment. Art adds a different dynamic to just mere imitation. Art adds a separate reality, one not bound by logical or empirical elements. It is this separate reality that Plato fears detracts from existence, and just serves as a distraction, but I would argue this separate reality encourages life, furthers knowledge, and opens the mind as a whole.
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