Plato has always fascinated me because he is so
against art, yet he frequently uses artistic language and voice in order to
explain his theories. This contradiction
is very intriguing and frustrating to me.
In the Ion by Plato, Socrates
discusses with Ion whether the skill of a “rhapsode” (performer of poetry) is
based on purely artistic skill or if it is divine reasons that give him such
skill. There is a definition of art that
is given as a definable body of knowledge, or an ordered system of skills.
If
I were to think Platonically, I believe that I would conclude that a true
rhapsode would be influenced by divine skill, this divine skill being the
forms. The rhapsode would be an
individual who has attained knowledge of the forms and can effectively “paint a
portrait in our minds” of these forms.
This would be the shortest step of the forms to our minds. Since it is coming directly from the forms,
into our minds, it is one step.
The
conclusion that Socrates and Plato come to is that the rhapsode must be working
through divine will, because there is no other way for a man to weep even
though he has lost nothing, for a man to recoil in fear even when he is not
afraid, unless he is out of his mind.
I
find this intriguing because this “rhapsode” sounds like what we would consider
an actor. Drama and theatre are
considered to be art forms to Plato. So,
if the rhapsode is really just a magnificent actor that can portray the
emotions of the individuals in the story beautifully, is the rhapsode not just
an artist? In the case of Ion, an artist
so skilled, that even Plato did not acknowledge what he did as art? It was
recognized as “divine inspiration from the muses.”
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