Plato and Greek Painting (review)

Book Reviews Eva C. Keuls. Plato and Greek Painting. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, vol. 5. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978. Pp. xv + 154, Gldrs. 54.oo. Plato's views on the fine arts are an interesting and perplexing subject. His references to them have suggested to many scholars that Plato was aesthetically conservative --that he disliked the styles of his own period and preferred those of an earlier time--and that his taste in the fine arts was influenced by, if not dictated by, his epistemology. Eva Keuls challenges this standard interpretation with an argument that no pronounced taste in painting is discernible in Plato's dialogues and that Plato had no profound knowledge of the fine arts nor even more than a passing interest in them. Rather, painting and its terminology provided Plato with a rich source of metaphor. The sense of sight and the art related exclusively to it, painting, furnish him with metaphors for all that he considers relative, transitory, and deceptive. The appearance in the dialogues of the technical vocabulary of the fine arts is motivated by his penchant for wordplay. Precisely because he has no pronounced tastes in painting, he molds his allusions to painting so that they fit the context of the arguments at hand. In Republic lo, for example, he describes painting as mimetic in order to support his arguments against mimetic poetry. The radical meaning of mimesis, Keuls contends, is dramatic enactment. Plato's metaphorical extension of this meaning to "copying the appearance of" is made for the sake of the argument against poetry, not for the purpose of criticizing the art of painting. Plato cannot be considered a crusader against the contemporary development of optically realistic styles, for the techniques of foreshortening, linear perspective, optical proportions in sculpture , and skiagraphia (which, according to Keuls, is the use of patches of color that contrast sharply to the nearby viewer but seem to blend when observed from a distance) were all developed no later than a generation before Plato. Even the livelier aesthetic controversies of Plato's own time, such as the debate over the priority of form or color, receive no mention in the dialogues---an indication that Plato lacked serious interest in the visual arts. It was the educational function of the fine arts to which Plato's interest was limited. The note of scorn for painting discernible in certain passages of the later dialogues can be correlated with the development of the school of painting at Sicyon, in the first half of the fourth century s.c., where painting was integrated into general education and where a probable influence was Democritus, Plato's enemy. Keuls gathers evidence for her theses largely from literary sources, since the physical evidence for Greek painting of the classical period is minimal. ("Greek painting" in this book refers to painted walls and panels, not to decorated pottery.) [91] 92 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY In addition, she provides ample discussion of scholarly opinion on the problems she treats. Her prose style is fashioned with a pleasing combination of clarity and grace. The book is a model of organization, with chapters clearly divided into sections, and conclusions anticipated long before they are reached. The technique of anticipation is perhaps carried to a fault, for the reader is so well informed about the direction in which arguments are tending that he feels little suspense. The primary fault of this book, however, is overstatement. Keuls frequently argues from evidence that is ambiguous or indirect. Although her interpretations are sometimes possible, at other times they are strained. Occasionally she resorts even to the argumentum ex silentio. Readers will not be persuaded to many of Keuis's conclusions; nonetheless, they will find her work quite useful for its collection of evidence, its discussion of scholarly literature, and its exposition of problems. Even when Keuls's theses are not completely convincing they frequently offer interesting hypotheses for speculation. Keuls's study reveals, partly in spite of itself, how little unambiguous evidence there is for Plato's attitude toward painting. The book is very well produced, though there is at least one serious mistake: at page 86, line 17, '~just" and "unjust...