The Republic by Plato
2. Plato supposes that when the tablet has been made blank the artist
129 words | Chapter 20
will fill in the lineaments of the ideal state. Is this a pattern laid
up in heaven, or mere vacancy on which he is supposed to gaze with
wondering eye? The answer is, that such ideals are framed partly by the
omission of particulars, partly by imagination perfecting the form
which experience supplies (Phaedo). Plato represents these ideals in a
figure as belonging to another world; and in modern times the idea will
sometimes seem to precede, at other times to co-operate with the hand
of the artist. As in science, so also in creative art, there is a
synthetical as well as an analytical method. One man will have the
whole in his mind before he begins; to another the processes of mind
and hand will be simultaneous.
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