What Influences Did the Development of Philosophy Have on Art

Hither we expect at how the influences on Ancient Greek fine art, including the importance, and what is meant by, the Goldern Ratio.

Fine art developed and so much during the Ancient Greek Period that it became the driving influence on art for the following centuries.

What influenced Aboriginal Greek fine art?

Ancient Greek art was influenced by the philosophy of the time and that shaped the way they produced art forms. The difficulty in understanding Ancient Greek art is that the philosophers held a theoretical view of colour and art while the artists were more than pragmatic in their production of fine art. This might be considering the Ancient Greeks did not have a concept of fine art. They used the word techne, which translates every bit 'skill', to describe painting or whatever adept human action. Artists and architects were artisans.

Hither in the word techne we run into the embryo of what was to become technology. So, for the Ancient Greeks, art and engineering were closely entwined, and it could be argued that this was influenced by the theories of Plato and Aristotle.

Did Plato and Aristotle agree in their views?

Plato's (c429-347 BCE) view of the globe was every bit something always irresolute − a poor, decaying copy of a perfect, rational, eternal, and changeless original. And so the beauty of a flower or a sunset is an imperfect copy of 'beauty' and just a pointer to perfection.

In book The Republic, Plato says art imitates the objects and events of ordinary life. It is a copy of a copy of perfection, and so fifty-fifty more of an illusion than ordinary feel. Works of art are at best entertainment, and at worst a dangerous delusion. Art is imitation, which was known as mimesis (the representation of nature). We tin can conclude that Plato didn't accept the notion of 'art beingness created by divine inspiration' very seriously.

Aristotle (384-322 BCE) on the other hand, saw an 'art' class equally a way of representing the inner significance of something, the 'essence'. To Aristotle art offers unity and the form should be consummate in itself. He sums this up in his theory of mimesis; the perfection and imitation of nature. So, at present art as simulated involves the apply of mathematical ideas such as symmetry, proportion and perspective in the search for the perfect, the timeless and contrasting object.

Hence the Greek concept of dazzler was based on a pleasing balance and proportion of form. The Ancient Greeks were innovators in the field of art and developed many new styles and techniques to attain that perfectness of residue and proportion and that concept has influenced countless artists always since. It can be argued that art up to the Greeks had been abstract and formal, while from the Greeks onwards it was based upon realism.

The thought of imitation to create realism through the capture of the essence of a form was nevertheless very strong in the Renaissance, when Vasari, in his Lives of the Painters, said that:

"… painting is merely the simulated of all the living things of nature with their colours and designs just every bit they are in nature."

Beauty and utility

The ancient Greeks were obsessed with aesthetics (from the Greek aisthetikos, meaning 'of sense perception'). Aesthetics is the study of beauty and the Ancient Greeks held beauty above all. To Plato it was an platonic.

Despite the differences in Plato's and Aristotle's views of fine art they did agree that fine art objects should endeavour to exist beautiful and useful. For Plato beauty was summed up in an object'southward suitability and utility for purpose. It is from these times that dazzler is linked to office.

Aristotle wrote nearly the idea of four causes. The showtime formal cause is like a design for the thought. The second cause is the material; what a affair is made out of. The third cause is the process by which the creative person makes the thing. The fourth crusade is the purpose of a matter, known every bit telos.

Aristotle considered it important that there be a sure distance between the work of art on the i hand and life on the other. Functionality in these terms leaves us with a dilemma.

Can't an object be beautiful without being useful?

It is possible to see the problem since the skills of the artist, the craftsman, and the technologist involve changes. A sculptor changes a block of marble into a statue, the creative person changes pigments into a coloured movie, and the craftsman uses tools and estrus to change a block of metal into a tool. Only really two of these examples would be described as art and the other as applied science.

Information technology appears that art and technology have diverged completely. Information technology could be rationalised as artists aspiring to requite permanence to the present, by creating works that volition suffer for all fourth dimension, and technicians aiming to apply skills to printing on into the future, to new discoveries which will change with time. So, technology is near permanent modify, comeback and moving lodge on to a new age; progress.

Imitation or self-expression?

The concept of realism and beauty could even so be the most commonly held theory for art amongst the majority of people today. But is that too simplistic?

John Ruskin writing near art (1819-1900) stated:

"Art does non represent things falsely, simply truly every bit they appear to mankind."

Nevertheless not long after, Pablo Picasso (1881- 1873), when asked whether he painted what he saw, replied:

"I paint what I know is in that location."

Painting what one sees is a description of fine art equally false, merely Picasso'southward is clouding the result of false alluding to artistic creation equally something entirely inside the creative person. So now the goal of the artist is self-expression, non necessarily imitation of whatever feature. Inspiration and the subject matter can derive from inside the listen of the artist, or they could exist trying to distil the essence of what is seen, creating an brainchild of its qualities.

Arguably this view of art as an expression started with the impressionists in France, and their attempts to capture art through calorie-free. The creative person is not merely painting a representation, merely giving a personal impression of what is seen. A painting or a slice of sculpture no longer has to refer to something familiar. It tin can consist of abstract lines, shapes and colours expressing the inner thoughts, imagination or emotions of the creative person, or pure abstraction itself.

There is still a whisper of the Greek ideal since harmony is constitute in symmetry. An image which is perfectly counterbalanced is appealing, and the perception of color equally contrasts can be beautiful in its rest.

Another dilemma - What is colour?

Aristotle believed light is something transmitted from an object to the eye, and then the colour of the object is an intrinsic belongings, like its weight or taste.

Aristotle reasoned that in a rainbow each droplet of water acts similar a tiny mirror. They reflect light and such mirrors change white light into coloured light. This lead to the idea that colour in a rainbow is not the same as normal colour. Aristotle knew virtually prisms and the fashion calorie-free is refracted into its colours only he over again believed the glass was modifying the light.

Isaac Newton, in the 17th century, also showed that white light was split into the spectrum of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. When he used a lens to re-focus the spectrum the result was white calorie-free, showing that light is made up of different wavelengths and is non modified by passing through a prism.

The Greeks also held a view that colour was related to light and dark, and so yellow would be related to light, and blue to dark. They also spent time trying to link paint colours to the four Aristotelian elements, which pb to the notion that mixed colours are junior to the pure colours. This could be seen equally the origin of primary and secondary colours, since mixing colours changes the tone and hue and sometimes moves towards a brown or dark colour.

In today's world we refer to 2 types of main colours. The start concerns the colours of projected light known every bit additive primary colours, which are carmine, green and blue. In the world of painting the primaries are reflected light, known as subtractive primaries, and are cyan, magenta and xanthous, though an artist volition refer to them as blue-greenish, violet-cerise and xanthous.

In Ancient Greece, mimesis was the idea that influenced the cosmos of art equally a model for dazzler.

Examples of where the theories of Greek art have been used

The second half of the 5th century BCE, the Gilded Age of Greece was the period of the most beautiful art and architecture. To expect at the way this symbolises the Greek ideas of art we must consider the part geometry plays in the story. Geometry was inbound a serial of great developments ane of which was the Golden Mean or Ratio.

Phidias and other architects knew, and used, the principles of geometry and optics. Their mantra was: 'Success in art is achieved by meticulous accuracy in a multitude of mathematical proportions'.

Their buildings symbolised perfection through the beauty of calculated geometric harmony. In the city of Athens geometry took another form. Philosophers were lecturing on mathematics, geography and rhetoric. Their method was called dialectics, and had been borrowed from the geometers in the design of deductive reasoning and proofs.

Pythagoras (560-480 BCE), the Greek geometer, had founded a schoolhouse of philosophy in Athens where mathematics was studied and taught. Pythagoras was especially interested the proportions of the man figure and had shown, in the Aureate ratio, that information technology was the basis for the proportions of the human figure. Pythagoras' discovery had a huge effect on Greek art. In architecture every function of a major building was constructed upon this proportion and the Parthenon was perhaps the best example of a mathematical approach to art.

Information technology is true the Parthenon (447-438 BCE) had been designed by Ictinus (c450-420 BCE) and Callicrates (fifth century BCE) according to mathematical principles merely there is no evidence of the use of the gold ratio. Its surrounding pillars were an instance of applied 'number': an even 8 pillars in the front, every bit Pythagoras advised, and then that no central column would block the view, then where it was alright to have an odd number, 17 pillars were built on each side.

Some people take gone farther and claimed the Parthenon was congenital according to the principles of the Gold Ratio. However as stated, there is no strong testify to support this. Analysis has shown that parts do follow the principles, only at that place are many who have demonstrated that when a beautiful slice of art is analysed the proportions will all follow the Golden Ratio. The question is: Is that by design or just the middle of inspiration?

It was not until 300 BCE that knowledge of the Gold Ratio was published and this was in an historical tape by Euclid called 'Elements'. And then, maybe it was the influence of Pythagoras on mathematicians at the time that promotes this idea. In his tape Euclid had shown that in the Golden Ratio (known every bit phi Φ) the longer part of a line divided by the smaller role of the aforementioned line is equal to the whole length divided by the longer part. This ratio (phi Φ) is i.6180339887. Encounter the diagram below:

If the Gilded Ratio was applied by an creative person information technology produced a balance and harmony in the object. Whether or not the ratio was practical in the structure of the Parthenon, to the Greeks it was considered the most pleasing building to the center.

The Greek sculptor Phidias sculptured many things using the Golden Ratio. Many artists who lived after Phidias, such as Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), used the ratio in the execution of their piece of work. Indeed the Mona Lisa has been shown to arrange to the Golden Ratio.

Perspective

Another important development in art is that of perspective; the illusion of three dimensions (3D) from a two-dimensional (second) pic. In information technology the artist must use tricks to fool the observer's sight into perceiving the object in 3D.

As role of the Aboriginal Greek theatre the Greeks had experimented with perspective from the 5th century. To requite the scenery depth they created illusions using skenographia in which depth of colour and foreshortening created the sense of depth. However, in terms of linear geometry the Ancient Greeks did not have a clear idea of perspective. The philosophers Anaxagoras (c500-428 BCE) and Democritus (c460-370 BCE) worked out some unproblematic geometric theories of perspective for use with skenographia on the stage, but in art information technology was not so widespread other than in the use of colour, tone and hue.

To conclude, Aboriginal Greek art was influenced past the philosophy of the mean solar day and at that place are arguments to back up the proposal that to the Greeks, good fine art was well-nigh imitation, with balance, proportion and harmony in colour and structure, to create beauty.

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Source: https://edu.rsc.org/resources/greek-art-theory-influences-future-art/1638.article

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