Is art deceptive?

Blog Prompt 7:

What is the difference between “beds in the world” and “the idea of a bed?” Where does “art” fit into his hierarchical scheme of reality? Plato criticizes art for being “deceptive.” How does art deceive us, according to Plato? Do you agree with this criticism?

When Plato refers to the beds in the world he is claims that there are three types of beds and there are three artist who superintend them: God, the maker of the bed, and the painter.

He states:

“Yes, there are three of them.
God, whether from choice or from necessity, made one bed in nature and one only; two or more such ideal beds neither ever have been nor ever will be made by God. “

Plato claims that God created a bed, and then others follow to create mirror images of the bed God created.

God created the bed but the Carpenter is then the maker of the bed.

Through the dialogue Socrates questions what is then the purpose of the painter.

He asks:

“Yes.
But would you call the painter a creator and maker?
Certainly not.
Yet if he is not the maker, what is he in relation to the bed? I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of that which the others make.”

Socrates categorizes the painter as an imitator of the bed. The painter creates images far removed from what is real. The painter is ” a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image.”

Socrates gives an exampled of how

“a painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter,or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter.

I think that Plato is saying that the artist is deceiving when he claims his painting to be something more than just a projection of reality.

Through a simple google search of “This is not a pipe” I found The Treachery of Images also known as This Is Not a Pipe and The Wind and the Song,  a painting by the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte.

 

This image is most reflective of what Plato’s  criticism of art. This is not a pipe it is a picture of a pipe.  I think that Plato is overcritical.

Art is an indispensable contributor of reality because it allows reality to “freeze” it allows for reality to be stored. It it wasn’t for the imitator (artist) of the past, we would not today have a grasp of what reality was in the past. I think that artist are not only imitators of reality, but analyst of what is true in form.

I think that it takes a special skill to almost perfectly create an image.  I agree that art is deceptive, but it is more informative. I claim that Plato does not see the value of what imitators create, and therefore, is naive to what the future holds for art.

Although art is deceptive of truth, it is also the only form of reality of the past that we will have.