Forwarded from Fixed Centre Art
'Plato knew as well as the Scholastic philosophers that the artist as such has no moral responsibilities, and can sin as an artist only if he fails to consider the sole good of the work to be done, whatever it may be.*1
But like Cicero, Plato also knows that “though he is an artist, he is nevertheless a man”*2 and, if a free man, responsible as such for whatever it may be that he undertakes to make; a man who, if he represents what ought not to be represented and brings into being things unworthy of free men, should be punished, or at the least restrained or exiled like any other criminal or madman.
It is precisely those poets or other artists who imitate anything and everything, and are not ashamed to represent or even “idealize” things essentially base, that Plato, without respect for their abilities, however great, would banish from the society of rational men, “lest from the imitation of shameful things men should imbibe their actuality,”*3.' - Ananda Coomaraswamy
*1 Laws 670E; Sum Theol. 1.91.3, I-II.57 ad 2.
*2 Cicero, Pro quinctio xxv.78.
*3 Republic 395c; cf 395-401, esp. 401BC, 605-607, and Laws 656c.
But like Cicero, Plato also knows that “though he is an artist, he is nevertheless a man”*2 and, if a free man, responsible as such for whatever it may be that he undertakes to make; a man who, if he represents what ought not to be represented and brings into being things unworthy of free men, should be punished, or at the least restrained or exiled like any other criminal or madman.
It is precisely those poets or other artists who imitate anything and everything, and are not ashamed to represent or even “idealize” things essentially base, that Plato, without respect for their abilities, however great, would banish from the society of rational men, “lest from the imitation of shameful things men should imbibe their actuality,”*3.' - Ananda Coomaraswamy
*1 Laws 670E; Sum Theol. 1.91.3, I-II.57 ad 2.
*2 Cicero, Pro quinctio xxv.78.
*3 Republic 395c; cf 395-401, esp. 401BC, 605-607, and Laws 656c.
Forwarded from /CIG/ Telegram | Counter Intelligence Global (John Chrysostom)
🇨🇳🇹🇼 BREAKING: Chinese warships enter territorial waters of Taiwan
⚡️⚡️⚡️ 🇺🇸 🇲🇽 BREAKING United States forces have captured strategic areas around Monterrey
Forwarded from No body
🇩🇪⚡️ BREAKING Germany wants to be at the center of a global conflict, begins rapid militarization with eyes on France