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Art and Aesthetics Essay example

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As time and centuries pass simultaneously art evolves too. During the Greek – Roman period in history art was a powerful medium and was used as a research instrument for studying the human body. The Greeks loved perfection, religion, and their government. These values were transferred to the Romans who adapted the Greek culture together with their swag. Later on by doing so, the mixture of both cultures came to be known as the “classical civilization” (The Greek Spirit pg. 99). The Greco-Roman style influenced many people specifically philosophers, pushed them to create theories that would explain, measure and declare what was art. Amongst these men we encounter the famous philosopher Plato and his ideal aesthetic when developing art. …show more content…

When looking at Haring's work you are able to see that indeed form, shape, and size is not essential, that perfection is not a necessity but that getting the message across is the new perfection, “By expressing universal concepts of birth, death, love, sex and war, using a primacy of line and directness of message , Haring was able to attract a wide audience and assure the accessibility and staying power of his imagery”( Keith Haring Biography) Plato would have hated this artist for not caring about having knowledge of the medium he was using, for being so free and for not being limited. Modern people have lost a sense of perfection and accuracy in their work because the meaning of the artwork has overpowered its aesthetic surface beauty, this meaning that Plato's aesthetic theories no longer limit and gear the modern artist towards perfection.
Art is the recreation of something that already exists. Plato refers to this as imitating work when he says, “Human makers envisage the human community according to the ideas of justice, the good, courage, temperance, and the beautiful. Within the state the various arts are practiced likewise as imitations of an external order of existence” (Philosophies of Art and Beauty pg. 4) Plato talks about how human makers see the world according to certain ideas, which pushes them (while thinking this way) to create/practice art even though in the end they are still imitations of

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