Panel Title
Viewing the invisible: Plato’s use of pictorial arts
Location
Thomas 224
Start Date
10-12-2013 2:45 PM
End Date
10-12-2013 3:30 PM
Abstract
Contrary to the traditional interpretation of Plato’s stance towards painting as derogatory (Stevens 1933, Schuhl 1952), recently it has been rightly argued that its treatment in the corpus is too complicated to be dismissed as only negative (Rouveret 1989, Halliwell 2002). Painting is for Plato a well adapted analogy which allows him to discuss highly intricate philosophical issues, as, for example, the relationship of the Forms with our earthly realm of sense-perception. In this paper I focus on Plato’s references to one particular pictorial technique, that of shadow-painting (skiagraphia), which appears for the first time in the Phaedo and is then re-employed in the Republic and in the late dialogues. I argue that this innovative 5th century technique serves as a metaphor for discussing the intricate philosophical issue of deceptive opposition and antithesis (ta enantia). From this point of view, skiagraphia can be grouped together with a number of other Platonic pictorial metaphors that seek to investigate false opposition and deceptive mixture, such as reflection of objects in water and in mirrors (eidola and phantasmata in Republic 10) or the work of a sculptor (phantastikê technê in the Sophist).
Viewing the invisible: Plato’s use of pictorial arts
Thomas 224
Contrary to the traditional interpretation of Plato’s stance towards painting as derogatory (Stevens 1933, Schuhl 1952), recently it has been rightly argued that its treatment in the corpus is too complicated to be dismissed as only negative (Rouveret 1989, Halliwell 2002). Painting is for Plato a well adapted analogy which allows him to discuss highly intricate philosophical issues, as, for example, the relationship of the Forms with our earthly realm of sense-perception. In this paper I focus on Plato’s references to one particular pictorial technique, that of shadow-painting (skiagraphia), which appears for the first time in the Phaedo and is then re-employed in the Republic and in the late dialogues. I argue that this innovative 5th century technique serves as a metaphor for discussing the intricate philosophical issue of deceptive opposition and antithesis (ta enantia). From this point of view, skiagraphia can be grouped together with a number of other Platonic pictorial metaphors that seek to investigate false opposition and deceptive mixture, such as reflection of objects in water and in mirrors (eidola and phantasmata in Republic 10) or the work of a sculptor (phantastikê technê in the Sophist).