Plato's concepts of beauty and art. Philosophy and aesthetics of Plato

Plato's doctrine of the soul set out in dialogues"Timaeus" and "Phaedrus". According to Plato, the human soul is immortal. All souls were created by the Creator at the time of the creation of the universe. Their number is equal to the number of heavenly bodies, so that for each soul there is one star that guards the soul in earthly life, after joining the body. Before the beginning of earthly existence, souls visit the world of pure ideas, located above the starry sky. Depending on the memories preserved from this by the soul, it then chooses for itself a body and an image of earthly life. After death, the soul is judged: the righteous go to heaven, and the sinners go underground. After a thousand years, the soul will again have to choose a material body. Souls who choose the way of life of philosophers three times in a row stop further rebirths and plunge into divine tranquility. All the rest move in earthly bodies (sometimes even non-human ones) for ten thousand years.

Plato believes that the human soul consists of three parts. One of them, reasonable, is placed in the head. The other two parts of the soul are unintelligent. One of them is noble - it is the will that lives in the chest and is in union with the mind. The other is ignoble - these are sensual passions and lower instincts located in the stomach. In each of the nations, one of the parts of the soul prevails: reason - among the Greeks, courage - among the northern barbarians, attraction to low self-interest - among the Phoenicians and Egyptians.

Being in the body under the dominion of sensibility, the soul would have no way to return to the world of ideas, if the world of appearances did not have in itself a property that revives in the soul the memories of the ideal world. This is the beauty that arouses love in the soul. In Plato's philosophy, love is valued the more, the more completely it is freed from grossly sensual attractions. Such love has since received the name "platonic".

You can get closer to understanding the idea of beauty by going through a series of steps:
looking at beautiful bodies;
admiring beautiful souls (Plato rightly shows that beauty is not only a sensual, but also a spiritual phenomenon);
passion for the beauty of the sciences (admiring beautiful thoughts, the ability to see beautiful abstractions);
contemplation of the ideal world of beauty, the actual idea of beauty.

True comprehension of the beautiful is possible thanks to the mind, intellectual contemplation, this is a kind of supersensory experience, i.e. Plato's aesthetics is rationalistic aesthetics. Plato explains the human desire for beauty with the help of the doctrine of Eros. Eros, the son of the god of wealth Poros and the beggar Penia, is rude and untidy, but has lofty aspirations. Like him, man, being an earthly being, desires beauty. Platonic love (eros) is love for the idea of beauty; platonic love for a person allows you to see in a particular person a reflection of absolute beauty.

In the light of Plato's idealistic aesthetic (an aesthetic that believes that beauty is an ideal entity), art has little value. It imitates things, while things themselves are the imitation of ideas, it turns out that art is “imitation of imitation”. Poetry is an exception, for at the moment of creation the rhapsodist is seized with ecstasy, which allows him to be filled with divine inspiration and partake of eternal beauty. In his ideal state, Plato wanted to abolish all the arts, but left those that have educational value, educate the civic spirit. In turn, only perfect citizens are capable of enjoying such “correct art”.

Plato in the dialogue "Feast" writes: "The beautiful exists forever, it is not destroyed, does not increase, does not decrease. It is neither beautiful here, nor ugly there ... neither beautiful in one respect, nor ugly in another.
Before a person who knows it, the beautiful “does not appear in the form of some form, or hands, or any other part of the body, nor in the form of any speech, or any science, nor in the form of something that exists in something else in any some living being, or on earth, or in heaven, or in some other object…”
The beautiful appears here as an eternal idea, alien to the changing world of things. Such an understanding of the beautiful follows from the philosophical concept of Plato, who argued that sensible things are shadows of ideas. Ideas are the unchanging spiritual essences that make up true being.

In the Philebus dialogue, Plato claims that beauty is not inherent in living beings or pictures, it is “straight and round”, that is, the abstract beauty of the surface of the body, the form separated from the content: “... I call it beautiful not in relation to something or ... but eternally beautiful in itself, in its nature ”(Platon. 1971, p. 66).

According to Plato, beauty is not a natural property of an object. She is "supersensual" and unnatural. It is possible to know the beautiful only being in a state of possession, inspiration, through the memory of the immortal soul about the time when it had not yet settled into a mortal body and was in the world of ideas.
The perception of beauty is a special pleasure.
Plato reveals his understanding of the way of knowing beauty. The character of his dialogue, the wise woman Diotima, expounds the "theory of eros" (supersensible comprehension of beauty).
Eros is the mystical enthusiasm that accompanies the dialectical ascent of the soul to the idea of beauty; this is philosophical love - the desire to comprehend the truth, goodness, beauty.
Plato outlines the path from the contemplation of bodily beauty (something insignificant) to the comprehension of spiritual beauty (the highest stage in the cognition of beauty is its comprehension through knowledge). According to Plato, a person learns the idea of beauty only in an obsessed state (=inspiration). The eternal and immortal beginning is inherent in a mortal human being.
To approach the beautiful as an idea, it is necessary for the immortal soul to remember the time when it had not yet settled into a mortal body. Plato connected the aesthetic category of the beautiful with the philosophical categories of being and knowledge and with the ethical category of the good.

33 Aristotle's teaching on art Turning specifically to the theory of art in Aristotle, it must be said that here, too, Aristotle argues, in comparison with Plato, much more differentiated. Art, taken in itself, that is, without any practical application, art as a disinterested and self-sufficient activity of the human spirit, is formulated by Aristotle much more clearly, and moreover so clearly that many of the relevant texts do not even allow any other commentary. Undoubtedly, the more general and more vague character of aesthetic terminology is in many places also characteristic of Aristotle himself. Nevertheless, here we have, of course, a progressive clarity of the whole problematic; and this clarity is not so easy to formulate, if we have in mind the text of Aristotle as a whole.

In the field of art theory Aristotle gave a lot of value. He summarized everything that had been said in this area before him, brought it into a system, and, on the basis of generalization, expressed his aesthetic views in the treatise Poetics. Only the first part of this work has come down to us, in which Aristotle outlined the general aesthetic principles and theory of tragedy. The second part, which outlined the theory of comedy, has not been preserved.

In the treatise "Poetics" Aristotle raises the question of the essence of beauty, and in this he takes a step forward in comparison with his predecessors, in particular with Plato and Socrates, which the concept of beauty merged with the concept of good. Among the Greeks, this ethical and aesthetic principle was even expressed by the special term "kalokagathia" (cf. Xenophon).

Aristotle in Poetics, however, he proceeds from an aesthetic understanding of art and sees beauty in the very form of things and their arrangement. Aristotle does not agree with Plato in understanding the essence of art. If Plato considered art to be only a weak, distorted copy of world of ideas and did not attach importance to the cognitive function of art, then Aristotle considered art to be a creative imitation (Greek - mimesis) of nature, being, believed that art helps people to know life. Consequently, Aristotle recognized the cognitive value of aesthetic pleasure.

About the essence of poetry and its types - about what significance each of them has, how plots should be composed in order for a poetic work to be good, how many and what parts it should consist of, as well as other issues related to the same area , we will say, starting, of course, first from the very beginning.

Epic and tragedy, as well as comedy, dithyrambic poetry, and most of the auletica and cytharistics, are all imitation in general. And they differ from each other in three ways: in that they reproduce by different means or different objects, or in a different, not the same, way. Just as (artists) reproduce many things by creating images with colors and forms, some thanks to theory, others to skill, and others to natural talents, so it happens in these arts. In all of them, reproduction is carried out by rhythm, word and harmony, and, moreover, either separately or all together.

So, only harmony and rhythm are used by auletics and cytharistics and, perhaps, some other arts of this kind, such as playing the flute. One rhythm without harmony is used by the art of dancers, since through rhythmic movements they depict characters, states of mind, and actions. And verbal creativity uses only prose or meters, and combining them one with the other, or using any one type of meters, until now it receives (names only for individual types). For we could not give any common name to the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus and the Socratic Dialogues, nor to works in the form of trimeters, or elegies, or any other meters of this kind. Only by combining the word “create” with the name of the meter, they call some the creators of elegies, others the creators of the epic, giving the authors names not according to the essence of their work, but according to the commonality of their meter. And if someone publishes some essay on medicine or physics in meters, then they usually call him a poet. But Homer has nothing in common with Empedocles except verse, why it is fair to call one a poet, and the other a naturalist rather than a poet. In the same way, if someone began to combine all meters in his works, as, for example, Charemon in “Centaurus”, a rhapsody mixed from all meters, then he should be called a poet.

On these issues, I will confine myself to what I have said. But there are some types of creativity that use all the indicated means, rhythm, melody and meter. Such are dithyrambic poetry, nomes, tragedy and comedy. And they differ in that some use these tools all together, others - separately. These are the differences between the arts that I am talking about, according to what they imitate. If for Plato the beautiful is an idea, then for Aristotle (384-322 BC) the beautiful is an idea presented in a thing. The idea of a thing is its form, when matter takes shape, a beautiful object is obtained (as marble, having accepted the idea of an artist, becomes a statue).

Proceeding from this, Aristotle interprets art as an activity, through art those things arise, the form of which is in the soul. According to Aristotle, the essence of art is mimesis (imitation), art imitates reality, has a mimetic nature. However, this is not blind copying, but a creative identification of the typical, general, ideal, with its obligatory embodiment in the material.

Based on the theory of mimesis, Aristotle divided the arts into imitative and complementary to nature. The latter include architecture and music, which the philosopher did not value very highly. Those arts that reflect reality are of the greatest value. They, in turn, are divided into arts of movement (temporal) and arts of rest (spatial). Types of art can also be distinguished by means of imitation (color, movement, sound). Highly appreciating poetry, Aristotle singled out epic, lyrics and drama in it, and divided dramatic works into tragedy and comedy.

The goal of the tragedy is catharsis, the purification of the soul through empathy with the heroes; passing through a crisis contributes to the upliftment of the soul. The doctrine of the cathartic nature of dramatic art has been widely recognized in aesthetics.

Aristotle, unlike Plato, believed that the beautiful is not an objective idea, but the objective quality of phenomena: “beautiful - both animal and every thing - consisting of known parts, should not only have the latter in order, but also have not any size : beauty lies in size and order ”(Aristotle. Poetics. 7, 1451a).
Aristotle here gives a structural description of the beautiful. Continuing the Pythagorean tradition, he argues that mathematics contributes to the comprehension of the beautiful (Aristotle. 1975, p. 327).
Aristotle put forward the principle of proportionality between a person and a beautiful object: “... neither an excessively small creature could become beautiful, since its review, made in an almost imperceptible time, merges, nor excessively large, since its review is not done immediately, but unity and integrity he is lost" (Aristotle. Poetics. 7, 1451a).
Perfect - not too big and not too small. This childishly naive judgment contains a brilliant idea. Beauty here acts as a measure, and the measure of everything is a person. It is in comparison with him that a beautiful object should not be "excessive." This concept is a theoretical correspondence to the humanistic practice of ancient art.
The Greek Parthenon, for example, unlike the Egyptian pyramid, is neither too big nor too small: it is large enough to express the greatness of the Athenians who created it, and small enough not to overwhelm a person.
Aristotle emphasized the unity of the beautiful and the good, the aesthetic and the ethical.
Aristotle interprets the beautiful as good, which is pleasant because it is good. Images of art for Aristotle should be as beautiful as they are morally high and pure.
Art does not always depict the beautiful, but it always depicts beautifully. The world is beautiful - this thesis went through the entire history of ancient aesthetics.

34 Vitruvius' treatise "ten books on architecture» a treatise on architecture by the Roman architect Mark Vitruvius Pollio, who became famous for this work. The treatise is the only surviving ancient work on architecture and one of the first in Latin. According to Vitruvius himself, at the time of writing the treatise in Latin, there were only four books on architecture: Fuficius, Terrentius Varro and two - Publius Septimius. The book is dedicated to Emperor Augustus as a token of gratitude for the help he provided.

Vitruvius described six fundamental principles of architecture.

1. Ordinatio (systematicity, order, order) - the general principles of architecture, the basics of volume formation (quantitas), the basics of proportions, the basics of size ratios (modulus) are described. Here is the famous triad of Vitruvius: three qualities that architecture must have: firmitas (structural strength), utilitas (benefit), venustas (beauty).

2. Dispositio (location, basis) - describes the basics of organizing space, the basics of the project and displaying them in three main drawings: ichnografia (floor plan), ortografia (drawing) and skenografia (perspective view).

3. Eurythmia - determines beautiful proportions, composition is being studied.

4. Symetria - under this category there is a strong anthropomorphism. The module based on parts of the human body (nose, head) is emphasized.

7. Architecture, in the understanding of Vitruvius (I, 3, 1), includes three main areas: architecture in the narrow sense of the word, i.e. building technology and building art (books I-VIII), gnomonics, i.e. the manufacture of instruments for measuring time (IX), and mechanics, that is, the manufacture of lifting and water-lifting machines and siege and throwing weapons (X). Covering the whole range of knowledge necessary for a builder and engineer, Vitruvius's treatise is not just a collection of recipes and not only a practical guide, but also a certain system of theoretical scientific knowledge. According to the definition of the author himself (I, 1), practice is based on theory, experience is tested and guided by science. Science, on the basis of the laws of nature established by it, explains why it is necessary to build in this way and not otherwise, shows how it is necessary to build, and evaluates what has already been built. From this follows the requirement of an encyclopedic education for an architect, and Vitruvius not only enumerates the sciences that an architect should know, but actually substantiates all areas of construction with relevant scientific theories, presenting them at times in a very musical theory (V, 3-5; 6); the device of sun and water clocks is nothing but applied astronomy (IX), not to mention the fact that the construction of lifts and throwing tools is an application of theoretical mechanics, in particular the doctrine of levers (X); finally, architectural aesthetics, i.e. the theory of decorations and proportions, which Vitruvius first defines in purely abstract categories (1,2) * , later on in a number of special cases is derived by him from the laws of the construction of the human body (for example, III, 1), from laws of physiological optics (III, 3, 10; 4, 5; 5, 10; 5.13; IV.4; VI. 2; 3.5) and from purely constructive principles (IV, 2). The scientific theories of Vitruvius are based on two natural-philosophical concepts that are very characteristic of antiquity: the doctrine of the four elements and the idea of the universal objective meaning of numerical patterns and proportional relationships that can be found in the structure of the universe and man and without which it is impossible to build either a beautiful building or accurately running machine; so, for example, the principle of modularity is applied both in the theory of orders and in the design of the ballista. In addition, it is interesting to note that Vitruvius also resorts to a historical explanation of the facts, which from our point of view is rather naive; he sketches a picture of the origin of architecture (II, 1), traces the genesis and history of architectural orders (IV, 1) and individual motifs (I, 1, 5-6) and derives the main elements of the order from the forms of wooden architecture (IV, 2), not to mention a whole series of historical anecdotes which he introduces as illustrations or for edification.

In the Middle Ages, Vitruvius was not forgotten. Vitruvius rediscovers the Renaissance. For the Renaissance, Vitruvius was primarily a source of knowledge of antiquity, and in addition, he was in tune with that new understanding of art as a science and an architect as homo universale (universal man), which at the beginning of the 15th century. produced in the advanced trading republics of Italy and primarily in Florence. In the process of studying the “reviving” ancient architecture, Vitruvius plays no less, often even a greater role than monuments; besides, the new architecture from its very first steps creates its own theory, again relying on Vitruvius. And since the order system was the main point connecting ancient architecture with the architecture of the Renaissance, Vitruvius' orders were the starting point for the entire architectural aesthetics of the Renaissance.

35 Theory of Oratory Cicero and Quintilian Ancient Greece is considered the birthplace of eloquence, although oratory was known in Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and India. But it is precisely in ancient Greece that it develops rapidly and systematic works on its theory first appear. The beginning of the cultivation of the spoken word was laid by the sophists, who, being themselves outstanding masters of eloquence, taught others this art. They founded schools where, for a fee, everyone could learn the rules for constructing a speech, the proper manner of pronouncing it, and the effective presentation of the material. Sophists were orators - paid teachers of philosophy and oratory. They belonged to the prevailing in Athens in the second half of the 5th century. BC. school of philosophers-enlighteners who created an unprecedented cult of the word and rhetoric. Sophists masterfully mastered all forms of oratory, the laws of logic, the art of argument, and the ability to influence the audience. The word, speech (logos) becomes the object of study, and rhetoric becomes the “queen of all arts”, the training of which became the highest degree of ancient education. The Sophists constantly emphasized the power of the word. who, having a very small and completely imperceptible body, performs the most wonderful deeds, for it can overtake fear, and destroy sadness, and inspire joy, and awaken compassion. Such, according to Gorgias, is the power of the word. But one must constantly work on the word so that it acquires power over people. Therefore, eloquence requires a lot of work. Protagoras explains this beautifully: “Work, work, training, education and wisdom form a crown of glory, which is woven from the flowers of eloquence and placed on the head of those who love it. It is true that language is difficult, but its flowers are rich and always new, and spectators applaud and teachers rejoice when students make progress, and fools are angry - or maybe (sometimes) they are not angry, because they are not insightful enough " .

In the state of slave-owning democracy, a special atmosphere was created for the flourishing of eloquence. It becomes an essential element of social life and an instrument of political struggle. Owning it was considered a necessity. Gradually, a practical direction took shape - composing speeches for the needs of citizens, there were statements by practitioners about the language and style of speeches, which then served Plato, Aristotle and other theorists as the basis for systematizing, further developing and deepening these judgments, turning them into theory. Classics occupies the period from the 6th to the 4th centuries in the ancient aesthetics of ancient Greece. BC. The Sophists, being representatives of a new trend of aesthetic thought that grew out of the depths of the socio-historical destinies of Greece in the second half of the 5th century. BC e., notes A.F. Losev, overcame the old cosmological period of ancient philosophical and aesthetic thought, being representatives of the middle (mature) classics. It was at this time that the small, free owner embarked on the path of expansion, went to a break with the polis collective, and began to pursue a policy of conquest. In the sphere of Athenian slave-owning democracy, the development of slave-owning appetites is also taking place. The Greek aristocracy gravitates towards the old tribal customs and authorities. Thus, growing individualism and subjectivism did not require a cosmological direction, as it was before, with the harmony of the slave system, when this harmony on Earth was identified with harmony in space. Now the cosmological theory fades into the background. They already demand that the problems of a person be brought to the fore, penetration into his subjective principles, into his psychology, into his experiences. The sophists were representatives of this trend, their views arose on the basis of the decomposition of cosmology.

The history of ancient aesthetics, the concept of beauty according to Plato.

Plato was born in 428-427 BC. e. in Athens or Aegina at the height of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. According to ancient tradition, his birthday is considered to be 7 tharhelion (May 21), a holiday on which, according to mythological legend, the god Apollo was born on the island of Delos.

Plato was born into a family of aristocratic origin, the clan of his father, Ariston (465--424), ascended, according to legend, to the last king of Attica Codrus, and the ancestor of Periktiona, Plato's mother, was the Athenian reformer Solon. Also, according to Diogenes, Plato was conceived immaculately.

Perectionia was the sister of Charmides and Critias, two famous figures from the Thirty Tyrants, the short-lived oligarchic regime that followed the collapse of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War. In addition to Plato, Ariston and Periktion had three more children: two sons - Adimant and Glavkon, and the daughter of Poton, the mother of Speusippus. According to the text of the State, Adamant and Glavkon were older than Plato. Plato's first teacher was Cratylus. Around 407 he met Socrates and became one of his students. Characteristically, Socrates is a constant participant in almost all of Plato's writings, written in the form of dialogues between historical and sometimes fictional characters.

After the death of Socrates in 399 BC. e. went to Megara. According to legend, he visited Cyrene and Egypt during the years 399-389. In 389 he went to southern Italy and Sicily, where he communicated with the Spithagoreans. In 387, Plato returned to Athens, where he founded his own school - the Platonic Academy. According to ancient legends, Plato died on his birthday in 347.

According to Diogenes Laertes, Plato's real name is Aristocles(ancient Greek Αριστοκλής; literally, “the best glory”). Plato is a nickname meaning "broad, broad-shouldered." On the contrary, there are studies showing that the legend of his name Aristocles originated during the Hellenistic period.

Fundamentals of Plato's ontology

It is generally accepted that Plato is one of the founders of the idealistic trend in world philosophy. In many works of the philosopher, the idea is that only absolute entities that preserve their existence regardless of space and time can be called being in the true sense of the word. Such absolute entities are called eidos in the writings. An idea is a speculative essence or an unconditional way of being, coinciding with an unconditional way of thinking. This is the most general definition, which has its roots in the Socratic point of view. Concerning the nearest explanations, Plato hesitated in different epochs. There are three main ways of understanding ideas. 1) Ideas are general generic concepts, what later in scholasticism was called universalia; for example, the common thing that all beautiful individual objects have among themselves is the idea of beauty, or beauty itself, i.e., the pure thought of beauty that is identical with itself. Such a view, when pursued consistently, encounters insurmountable difficulties that do not allow us to dwell on it. 2) Ideas are the actual prototypes of data in the manifest world of objects, or special qualitative realities, distinguished from sensible things by eternity, immutability and the highest superiority in all respects. Contemplating these ideas (in this sense), the Deity, as the Demiurge (Builder), creates according to them, as according to models, sensible things either himself or through creative forces subordinate to him. This view is expressed by Plato mythologically rather than dialectically. 3) Ideas are unconditional intelligible norms, or the origin of a worthy existence, sufficient grounds for determining the positive quality of everything that exists, the eternal limits of any being from three main sides - ethical, logical and aesthetic. The idea of ideas is good, or good, or goodness - the unconditional norm of any dignity in general, identified by Plato with the Divine in the absolute sense; from it all other ideas flow in the right order. The highest idea is the idea of absolute good - it is a kind of "Sun in the realm of ideas", the world Mind, it deserves the name of Mind and Deity. But this is not yet a personal divine Spirit (as later in Christianity). Plato proves the existence of God by the feeling of our affinity with his nature, which, as it were, "vibrates" in our souls.

Plato understood the impossibility of completely separating the heavenly realm of ideas from the most ordinary earthly things. After all, the theory of ideas arose for him only on the paths of realizing what things are and that their cognition is possible. Greek thought before Plato did not know the concept of "ideal" in the proper sense of the word. Plato singled out this phenomenon as something that exists in itself. He ascribed to ideas an independent being, originally separate from the sensible world. And this, in essence, is a doubling of being, which is the essence objective idealism.

According to Plato, the idea of \u200b\u200bbeauty and goodness stands above all, therefore it is impossible to call art and having beauty that which "is directed to pleasure, and not to the highest good"

(c. 428-347 BC) believed that the task of aesthetics is to comprehend beauty as such. Considering beautiful things (a beautiful girl, a beautiful horse, a beautiful vase), Plato concludes that beauty is not contained in them. The beautiful is an idea, it is absolute and exists in the “realm of ideas”.

In the 5th and 4th centuries. BC. There were 3 main problems:

The essence of the aesthetic; - the place of art in public life; - aesthetic education.

In the dialogue Hippias the Greater, Plato searches for the essence of the beautiful, combining it with the useful. Universal beauty was created by God. He writes about this in the diologist "Feast". He shares different levels of perception of beauty.

Stage 1, where a beautiful beginning is found, impulsive aesthetic admiration, physical perfection, body type (not self-sufficient, changes with age);

Stage 2: the level of spiritual beauty of a person (the beautiful is not stable);

Stage 3: literature and arts, sciences and arts (experience, coverage of human knowledge);

Stage 4: the highest sphere of good (wisdom). All spheres are connected at one point.

Plato explains the human desire for beauty with the help of the doctrine of Eros. Eros, the son of the god of wealth Poros and the beggar Penia, is rude and untidy, but has lofty aspirations. Like him, man, being an earthly being, desires beauty. Platonic love (eros) is love for the idea of beauty; platonic love for a person allows you to see in a particular person a reflection of absolute beauty.

In addition, Plato likens the Divine principle to a magnet and directs any human actions. The shadow of reality is a divine shadow - the artist's creations are a shadow of shadows. In the field of aesthetic education, Plato shares the sweet Muse and the orderly Muse. Strives to filter works according to the principle of educational value.

In Dr. In Greece, the arts had a strong educational value (in Sparta, soldiers cannot listen to music, only epic ballads), music softens men. The theater must be removed, considered a spectacle of gladiator fights. Plato divides society into a crowd, warriors, sages. And each caste requires its own art. In Plato's dialogue "Ion Socrates" an interpretation of artistic creativity is given. At the moment of the creative act, the artist is driven by divine power. The artist is the conductor of higher worlds. But his role is dual in this: he listens to the orderly or sweet muse (Apollo and Dionysius). Plato introduces the concept of "measure", it is dictated by the inner nature. Another category is "harmony", it is close to the concepts - measure, symmetry, proportions. From the initially divergent, harmony was born (low and high tones - harmony is born). It is about the contrast of the connection of opposites. In Plato, truth is not available to imitators of art, and a non-imitator of art is involved in true knowledge (music, dance, poetry). Plato understood the restoration of the world of the ancient policy (city, state) as a common good. The goal of the state is the restoration of integrity (consists of everything - people, space, etc.). He believed that art (sculpture, tragedy) unites people, recreates the integrity of society. Plato wanted a real synthesis of art with practical forms of social life.

5. The work of Velazquez and the artistic culture of Spain in the 17th century.
Character. features: (religious, mythological, courtier (alive)
Everyday (genre) Spanish painting received the most vivid expression in the work of the young Velasquez. He was fond of caravagism, characterized by the stiffness (for Spain) of genre painting - the inhabitants of the social bottom.
"The Old Cook", "Two Young Men at the Table", "Water Carrier", "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary". Later becomes a painter at Philip's court. In the gallery of portraits created by Velazquez, images of royal jesters occupy a special place. In the 1640s he executed portraits of the dwarf Diego de Acedo. nicknamed El Primo (cousin), El Bobo (fool) and the dwarf Sebastiano Mora. He paints ugly, sometimes stump-like figures of jesters and dwarfs, their sick faces, marked with the stamp of degeneration. But the artist does not want to humiliate those depicted. They evoke a feeling of acute pity. In the late period of creativity, Velasquez created portraits mainly of representatives of the royal house. In 1657, a portrait of the aging Philip IV, sharp in its psychological characteristics, was painted. With objectivity, Velazquez portrayed the Spanish infantes in a number of children's and women's portraits. Meninas (1656) The painting Meninas (in Portuguese, menina is a young aristocratic girl who was a lady-in-waiting with the Spanish infantas) takes us to a spacious palace room. To the left of the large canvas, Velazquez depicted himself at the moment when he paints a portrait of the royal couple. The king and queen themselves are not represented in the picture, the viewer sees only their vague reflection in the mirror. Little Infanta Margarita, surrounded by ladies-in-waiting and dwarfs, is called upon to entertain her parents during the tiring hours of the session.

Spinners (1657). The spinners themselves are depicted in the foreground in the semi-darkness of a modest tapestry workshop. Everything here is simple and unadorned - this is the working environment of a dim room with balls and scraps of thread scattered across the floor. In the depths, on a platform flooded with the rays of the sun, there are smartly dressed court ladies who are examining a magnificent tapestry hung on the wall. These two planes of the picture are in complex interaction. Reality here is opposed to the dream, the Labor of idleness.

Jusepe Ribera is an artist of a pronounced dramatic plan. He was attracted by the theme of martyrdom, human suffering. Paintings depicting the martyrdom of various Catholic saints were widespread in Baroque painting. "Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew". Huseppe Ribera is fond of caravaggism, the themes of his paintings are historical, ancient, religious. "Lame" - a genre image, the artist gave the most acute expression of the problems of reality. "Diogenes", "St. Agnes", "St. Jerome", "The Penitent Magdalene", "St. Christopher with the Young Christ, "Jacob's Dream".

Main customers Zurbarana there were various Spanish monasteries, and the master himself most often depicted scenes from the life of holy monks. " Miracle of St. Hugo.""Visit to St. Bonaventure by Thomas Aquinas”, “Vision to St. Pedro Nolasco of the Crucified Peter”. The portrait in the work of Zurbaran is portraits of certain persons (usually monks) and images of the saints of the Catholic Church, “St. Lawrence”, The most famous portraits of Zurbaran are portraits of the theologian Jerome Perez (c. 1633) and a doctor from the University of Salamanca (c. 1658-1660). "Adoration of the Magi", "Life of Bonaventure", still lifes in the style of Caravaggio.

Francisco Bartalameo Isteban Murillo realism, religion is alive (completes the golden age Spanish is alive (genre painting children, little beggars, a boy with a dog, melon eaters, a fruit seller) 11 pictures about St. Diego. Mary's Christmas.

In his dialogues, Plato often and willingly speaks of beauty and pays much attention to its definition. Reasoning about beauty and various approaches to defining its manifestations can be found in many dialogues, such as Phaedrus, Philebus, and the State. One of the early dialogues, Hyppius the Greater, is entirely devoted to the analysis of the concept of beauty, and here Plato already concludes that beauty cannot be reduced to the beauty of individual objects, but something in common is manifested in all beautiful objects. What this commonality is, however, remains uncertain. Undoubtedly, the dialogue "Feast" is the pinnacle of discussions about beauty. In it, beauty turns out to be directly connected with love, passionate aspiration - including philosophy as a love for wisdom. It immediately becomes clear that Plato's understanding of both beauty and love is very specific. Beauty is not for him a by-product or concomitant property of love itself or its object. It reflects his very essence. And love - which is finally confirmed in the speech of Socrates, which completes the dimensional series of speeches about love - is not love for the individual (although this is also present in Plato in the speech of Aristophanes, who tells the famous myth of halves seeking each other). Love as a reckless, unconscious attraction is also rejected by Plato. Love is love for the perfect, in itself, or found in the individual, but not for the individual as such. To concentrate not only on one beautiful body, but even on one beautiful soul or one of the beautiful sciences, love has no right. It is good to be faithful to a friend, but love cannot find its true object in the individual and must continue to strive for it until it reaches its limit. In the speech of Socrates from the "Feast", Plato with rapid speed makes a transition in reasoning from love to good, from good to immortality, and from immortality to beauty, the theme of which in previous speeches passed only in passing. What connects these concepts for Plato? Love is defined as the desire not just for some object, but for an object that represents a certain good, i.e. love is the pursuit of goodness. And not just for good, but for the eternal possession of good. Love is always a desire also for immortality. And beauty turns out to be that necessary condition, without which this infinite constancy in the possession of the good cannot be achieved. If for a mortal man immortality is achievable only by producing something that will survive a changeable body (from procreation at the lowest level, to artistic creativity, military exploits, legislative regulations, and, finally, philosophical thought - at the highest), then to give birth and produce into the world, according to Plato, both the body and the soul can only be in the beautiful - in the presence of the ugly, both the body and the soul darken and shrink and cannot produce proper offspring. Ugliness prevents birth - and hence immortality. And this is not surprising - after all, in ugliness for Plato, as well as for the entire ancient tradition, there is no main condition for being: order, harmony. The ugly is impermanent and accidental, it is the result of a deviation from the rule, a defect in form, a violation of regularity, and, consequently, is a lack of being, and an ugly thing is a thing that does not fully exist. To understand the meaning of beauty in Plato's teaching, one must turn to his views on the structure of being and the action of cognition, since the concept of beauty is not just an element of the Platonic system, but its all-encompassing definition. According to Plato, the world has order due to eternal and unchanging ideal archetypes, imperfect copies of which are material things. Thanks to these ideal forms, the material world exists as an ordered cosmos, and not as chaos. Thanks to them, we are able to know the world - to recognize similar things, to observe similarities. This is the basis of the Platonic concept of knowledge as recollection: we have already seen pure, unclouded ideas - therefore we are able to recognize material things like them. Most likely, the reasoning of Plato and the entire Socratic school should have come precisely from the property of knowledge to generalize, to bring under a single genus. Our knowledge depends on the general, in any subject we know the general and do not know the individual, that which absolutely distinguishes one subject from others and is not subject to any definition. But since something non-existent could not be the basis of true cognition (otherwise cognition would be false), then this general must necessarily exist - before all individual things. Thus, Plato creates the basis of any metaphysical concept that reveals the extraphysical foundations of the physical world. It is at this point that Plato makes that mental move that was perceived by European thought for millennia and was criticized only in modern times. Plato believes that knowledge in any case is knowledge of order and the foundations of this order are in being itself. Otherwise, the physical world would be complete chaos - and this chaos does not exist due to the existence of ideas. We are able to see order and are not meaningless beings because our soul is involved in the world of ideas. The tendency to see order is inherent in our mind because it participates in the world of order. And sometimes the coincidence of the order of things that we observe with this inclination of ours cannot but arouse pleasure and admiration in us, especially because we have no reason to expect this coincidence from things (our soul, chained in a material body, could hardly count on such a gift in disordered and coarse matter). Plato correlates this pleasure with the concept of beauty. Beauty in things is thus a reminder of an idea, an ontological concept, evidence of true being. Beauty is the greatest correspondence to the idea, its best likeness, and since the idea is the essence of the thing, then beauty is the greatest correspondence to the essence, that is, perfection. Ideas, as ideal forms, are in themselves the most beautiful (which would have been impossible in the modern European tradition, where beauty was ultimately defined as the mere human manifestation of an idea). As the true essence of things, ideas are the truth of the world. They are the foundations of being, the foundations of order in the world, they give form to chaotic matter, they create the cosmos from chaos, they are good in the highest sense of the word: the giver of being. This means that the more a thing resembles its idea, that is, the more beautiful it is, the closer it is to truth and goodness. Thus, beauty is an essential attribute of truth and goodness, and beauty observed in material things is the most direct path to true knowledge, while true knowledge is the path to Good. Therefore, for Plato there is no doubt about the closeness of love to beauty and love to wisdom (philosophy). True knowledge can begin with admiration for beautiful bodies - after all, they resemble an idea, and not just some idea like the famous “pregnancy” and “horseness”, which served as the subject of ancient criticism of Plato, but the most important of the ideas, beauty as such, i.e. beauty. e. the speculative and unsurpassed beauty of truth itself.