Plato 's Allegory Of The Cave

In Plato's “Allegory Of The Cave” he expresses that people are innately born with abilities like thinking and communicating, but their individual outlook on life is relative to their experiences in life; their educational awareness. Like the men chained in the “cave”, restricted to see only shadows of images cast by fire light and muffled echo sounds of voices; if one is restricted from experiencing new things, places or ideas, then in life their reality is limited to only the experiences they have had. The shadows the prisoners see on the wall are their reality not the actual objects that made the images. As our text “”Think” buy Judith A. Boss indicates, experience and facts we receive from additional resources is the basic level of thinking. Without continued facts and experiences, without education, our thinking is limited to our narrowed reality (shadows).

In Plato’s, Allegory of the cave, a key theory I found was the importance of education. Plato uses an “allegory to illustrate the dilemma facing the psyche in the ascent to knowledge of the imperishable and unchanging forms” (104) Based on my research of the republic, the allegory can reveal multiple hidden messages. Plato describes, ordinary mortals are chained within an underground chamber, which according to Fiero, represents the psyche imprisoned within the human body. These mortals can’t look sideways only straight ahead. They also can’t leave the cave and are facing a cave wall that they can see shadows from a fire of what they imagine are men. These mortals have been in this cave since childhood, which makes them believe the shadows themselves are the men, not a reflection of an actual man. Again, according to Fiero, the light, represents true knowledge, and the shadows on the walls of the cave represent the imperfect and perishable imitations of the forms that occupy the world of the senses.

In the 19th century, there was an artistic transition from realism to a new form called impressionism. This change originated in France, as the world underwent a transition to industrialization. The impressionist was able to understand how light and color operate hand in hand in a painting. Instead of seeing an image as a whole work, impressionist would see smaller images making up the entire piece. The style was primarily made of the use of intense colors, open composition, light and movement and brush strokes. They were mainly

“Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light, or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye…” (Plato). In this quote from Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” an instance in which a person comes face to face with something that confounds them, it can be due to two factors. First, it could be that they are knowledgeable and are paying attention and go to seeing ignorance. Or it could be that they are not knowledgeable and are faced with veracity. A situation such as this takes place in Plato’s

Impressionism can be considered the first distinctly modern movement in painting. Developing in Paris in the 1860s, its influence spread throughout Europe and eventually the United States. Impressionism was a style of representational art that did not necessarily rely on realistic depictions. The Impressionists loosened their brushwork and lightened their palettes to include pure, intense colors.

The shift from Realism to Impressionism in the 19th century represented not only a change in form, but it also represented a shift in ideology. As one of our module videos notes, rather than focusing on accuracy and clarity, Impressionism emphasized “what the mind and the eye sees” and the “impression of light and color.” We will briefly discuss how the differences in the approaches of the Realists and the Impressionists had interesting implications for arts and how these ideologies can be applied to the ways in which believers and unbelievers interpret art.

One of Plato’s more famous writings, The Allegory of the Cave, Plato outlines the story of a man who breaks free of his constraints and comes to learn of new ideas and levels of thought that exist outside of the human level of thinking. However, after having learned so many new concepts, he returns to his fellow beings and attempts to reveal his findings but is rejected and threatened with death. This dialogue is an apparent reference to his teacher’s theories in philosophy and his ultimate demise for his beliefs but is also a relation to the theory of the Divided Line. This essay will analyze major points in The Allegory of the Cave and see how it relates to the Theory of the Divided Line. Also, this

My event was the Dallas Museum of Art; “The Lens of Impressionism,” photography and painting along the Normandy coast 1850-1874. I went on Sunday, February 21, 2010. The class studied this era in Chapter 13: The Working Class and the Bourgeoisie. The term "impressionism" was coined by a critic interacting with Clause Monet's "Impression: Sunrise" painting in 1874. French impressionists depicted light and color and was often embellished with romanticism; usually conveyed scenes filled with light and joy (Sayer).

According to, David W. Galenson and Bruce A. Weinberg, in their article, Creating Modern Art: The Changing Careers of Painters in France from Impressionism to Cubism, the goal of the Post-Impressionism artists were to symbolize, rather than describe nature. Therefore, this in turn, allowed them to use more innovating techniques and to express their emotions; Gauguin and van Gogh were particularly zealous about using their emotional state to convey the content of their paintings. A quote taken directly from Galenson’s and Weinberg’s article, perfectly describes this attitude of emotion, rather than observation as the key artistic foundation of Post-Impressionism:

Art has evolved and regenerated itself many times during our human existence. These differences are defined through changes in styles under various theories. During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, a style known as Expressionism became popular. During this movement the artists were trying to use their artwork as a tool of expression toward life. It was mainly dominant in the nonrepresentational arts, such as abstract visual arts and music. It also was probably one of the most difficult movements to understand because the whole point of the piece lay within the artist. Not only was it a movement, it defined the act of art as a whole. From the beginning of time, each work of art, excluding replicas, show a way of expressing

In Plato’s, “Allegory of the Cave”, a key theory I found was the importance of gaining knowledge. Plato uses an “allegory to illustrate the dilemma facing the psyche in the ascent to knowledge of the imperishable and unchanging forms” (Fiero, 104). Based on my research of the Republic, the allegory can reveal multiple hidden messages. Plato describes in the Allegory, ordinary mortals who are chained within an underground chamber, which according to Fiero, represents the psyche imprisoned within the human body. These mortals can’t look sideways, but rather only straight ahead. On top of this, they also can’t leave the cave. These prisoners are facing a cave wall that they can only see shadows reflecting from a fire of what they imagine are men. These mortals have been in this cave since childhood, which makes them believe the shadows themselves are the men, not a shadow of an actual man. Again, according to Fiero, the light, represents true knowledge, and the shadows on the walls of the cave represent the imperfect and perishable imitations of the forms that occupy the world of the senses.

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave he discusses reality and how it is directly influenced by one’s own perception. The idea of my own personal reality is one I have spent many nights contemplating. As proposed by Plato, reality, even if it is a lesser reality, is still a reality to someone who hasn’t been yet been enlightened. Even though the one prisoner was released from the cave and discovers that everything he learned since childhood was false, he cannot return the cave and instill his wisdom into the other prisoners. Just as the freed prisoners reality was changed when he was enlightened to the world around him, so has mine over the years. I must discover my own truths in this life for no one can instill them into me. One would have an easier time teaching a pig to fly.

Arthur C. Danto in “The Artworld” provides us with the argument that, “To see something as art requires something that the eye cannot descry-an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld.” Danto shows us the importance of the artworld in order to know that a work of art is more than just what we can plainly see. Danto provides two theories he calls the “IT” (Imitation theory) and the “RT” (Reality theory). With these two theories, Danto explains how we can define art and why “The Artworld” is needed to help understand art, because after all, “these days one might not be aware he was on artistic terrain without an artistic theory to tell him so.”

Abstract Expressionism is making its comeback within the art world. Coined as an artist movement in the 1940’s and 1950’s, at the New York School, American Abstract Expressionist began to express many ideas relevant to humanity and the world around human civilization. However, the subject matters, contributing to artists, were not meant to represent the ever-changing world around them. Rather, how the world around them affected the artist themselves. The works swayed by such worldly influences, become an important article within the artists’ pieces. Subjectively, looking inward to express the artist psyche, artists within the Abstract Expressionism movement became a part of their paintings. Making the paintings more of a representation

Impressionism as an historical art period is best described as a shift in thinking and focus. This paradigm shift, away from realism and toward individualism, began a centuries long transformation of self-expression in art as a whole. Impressionism is generally considered a French movement and is typically defined as spanning from approximately 1867 to 1886. Impressionism is best embodied by and was perhaps initiated by Claud Monet in such world-renowned works as Impressions: soleil levant which lent its name to the style and subsequently the art period as a whole.