ART & PHILOSOPHY:

IMITATIONISM AND REPRESENTATION

WEEK 6 – 7

COA TF 2:30 – 4:00PM

LEADER:
DELA CRUZ, LORRAINE ANN C.

MEMBERS:
SISON, MICHELLE DOLLIE S.
BELTRAN, BESSIE ELOISE B.

DR. ADELAIDA M. PALLONES

ART APPRECIATION PROFESSOR
CONTENT

Art as Imitation and Representation

Imitation according to Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary means

“to be like or to make a likeness of something” (Hornsby 423). The Greek
word “mimes” is a basic theoretical principle in the creation of art and it
means “imitation” which implies “re-representation” rather than “copying” it
is in this sense that we employ the term imitation in relation to art.
According to the mimetic theory, art is an imitation or representation of
nature or reality. Art being imitation, means that like philosophy it reflects
reality in its relation to man and depicts man, his spiritual world and
relations between individuals in their interaction with the world.

The imitation theory of art otherwise known as formalism states that

art is just an imitation of nature. According to Plato one of the greatest
exponents of his theory, because particular things which we perceive in the
physical universe are copies of their prefect forms or ideas, we cannot see
them with the naked eyes but only with the intellect. For him beauty is one
of such forms or ideas that manifest in particular beautiful things. Hence,
anything we think is beautiful must be an imitation of the original beauty.
For instance, if a beautiful girl is a copy of beauty, then an artist who draws
the girl will be getting a copy of the copy.

It is on the basis of the above that Plato dismisses art and artists as
useless. For him, art adds nothing to our knowledge of the world nor to
society. Art for Plato is aimed at deception, and this aim is achieved when
the spectator mistook an imitation for reality. Hence, he concludes that art
is potentially dangerous as it is psychologically de-stabilizing, leading to
immorality, unconcerned with truth and therefore a threat to the common
good. He therefore recommends that artists should be driven from the city.
Plato understands of art as imitation is not very correct. It is problematic. It
is not correct to say that art is unconcerned with truth and that it is
deceptive.
Like philosophical inquire which is after truth and prediction, art is
after artistic truth, and not accuracy of reproduction, in the sense of a copy
of what exists, but a lifelike portrayal of typically possible phenomena in
either their developed or potential form. If art produced only truths similar
to scientific truths, there would be no masterpieces of world art. The
immortality of great masterpieces lies in the power of their artistic
generalization of the most complex phenomenon in the world man and his
relations with his fellow man.

In the same vein, while agreeing that art is essentially as imitation of

nature, Aristotle maintained that art was not useless neither dangerous nor
deceptive. For him art is conceptual and intellectual. As imitation, it is the
imaginative use of concepts. As is imitative by nature and is a necessary
part of human nature. Nothing is more natural than for children to pretend
and for human beings to create, using their imagination. Thus, any human
society which is healthy will be a society where there is imitative art.

The concept of art as imitation is also used in the sense of

representation (representation of reality or nature). Thus, representation
and imitation are used in this essay as synonyms to portray the role,
function and nature of art. Art is representation, imitation, or reflection of
reality. Representation can be seen as “standing for” something. Dance,
films, sculpture, architecture stand for something. Literary art always stands
for something, so also does other forms of art imitate or stand for
something.

Again, representation and imitation in relation to art is “about”

something. For instance, music and paintings are about something. Thus,
“representation” as “aboutness” implies “interpretation”. If a work of art can
be interpreted, it is about something. The interpretation says what it is
about.
 According to Roger Scruton, “representation, as I understand it, is
characterized by a prepositional content… it involves the telling of a story
(89).

It is important to note that most forms of art which are said to express
emotion are also representational. They describe, refer to, or depict the
world. Moreover, it is difficult to see how emotions can be expressed in the
absence of representation. Every emotion requires an object: Fear is fear
of something, anger is anger about something. We can distinguish
emotions and classify them only because we can distinguish and classify
their intentional objects, and we can do this only because we can identify
the thoughts through which those objects are defined.

It is to be emphasized at this point that, art is both representational

and imitational of nature, reality and man’s experiences in relation to his
environment.

For instance, in painting, “it is the representational nature of painting

which liberates our sympathies, by presenting us with imagined objects to
which we need have no practical concern” (Roger 92). Similarly, Drama
accurately portrays psychological reality, by making characters believable
and their actions understandable. A convincing and powerful drama is
convincing and powerful because if reveals some truth of human nature
and teaches the truth.

According to Aristotle, drama is an excellent way of teaching morality.

Drama imitates both events and actions. For instance, in a tragedy, the
main character always comes to a bad end because of a character flaw.
Mazi Okonkwo in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Odewale in Rotimi’s The
Gods Are Not To Blame and Macbeth in Shakespeare’s Macbeth are
examples of such tragic heroes. Drama achieves its peculiar effects of
instilling feelings in the spectators. In doing so, drama reinforces morality
and the ultimately rational structure of the universe rather than challenging
it.

When Achebe’s work “Things Fall Apart” and Elechi Amadi’s The
Concubine is properly digested; one would discover the exposition,
imitation and representation of pure African culture and conception of
reality in the words and actions of the characters involved. As such, they
imitate intentions, psychological forces and the unseen inner life of
persons.

Similarly, the art of dramatic poetry, through, an imitation of human

actions, is not a mere “chronicle” of events. Poetry depicts things in their
universal character. “Poetry is more philosophical and more elevated than
history, because while the later records what did happen, the former
reveals what should happen and what must happen according to the laws
of the universe and psychology” (Aristotle 4).

For instance, Ebele Eko’s poem “Arise Oh Daughters of Africa” is a

representation of reality and the nature of man in his relationship with his
environment. According to the poem, in spite of the odds facing man in his
life, he still strives hard to overcome the forces weighting him down and to
succeed. Thus, the 10th and 11th stanza of the poem states thus:
In a world that truncates
Dreams and hopes and joys
There is a world of hidden gems
That calls for work and pains
Arise! From your sleep
Strive hard for the cream
Stand firm on your feet
Fight hard all defeat… (Eko 72).
 The point being made is that, art, does not teach us history because it
is imitation, but because art imitates human actions, good art has to
represent or depict character, character traits and personality. These later
things are real, so it teaches us moral and psychological lessons. What art
is imitating or representating is real and applicable to our lives. Art also
displays and transmits this knowledge in a unique way. The audience are
made to understand the universals at work in the drama or poetry and in
that sense they internalize the knowledge of human nature and morality
utilized by the playwright, poet or/the novelist.

While Aristotle believed that art did stir up negative emotions, he

however, believed that these negative emotions were then purged in a
harmless, healthy way. This is his doctrine of “Carthesis”. Hence, against
the views of Plato, art was neither psychologically destabilizing nor
politically destructive, but actually a therapeutic part of the healthy life of
not only an individual but of the society at large.

In what seems to be an agreement with the view that art is essentially

representation or imitation of reality in relation to man, Rollo May discusses
in details the representative nature of architecture. According to her the
skyscrapers in New York City are the epitome of beautiful works of art. Her
office which was on the 25th floor of 103rd street on Hudson River had seven
windows which opened out on the skyline of New York and it always struck
her as one of the most beautiful things in the world. In her words,
…what those skyscrapers stand for, what they symbolize, is the
competitive struggle of contemporary man in New York. They represent
(symbolize) to some extent the dog-eat-dog society, a society essentially of
money (56).

The point to be noted in May Rollo’s remark, is that art, and in this
case architecture, represents or imitates the nature of the society in which it
is found. Art is not a mere copying or mimicking of nature or reality. Art is
reality. It is nature itself. In order words, art is nature of reality and reality or
nature is art. They are examples of how art focuses attention and changes
one’s experience of certain aspects of the world which then blossom out
into something far richer and more resonant than the things or scenes in
themselves would warrant.

According to Schclling, Schopenhauer and the early Nietzsche, “it

was though art that man might best hope to articulate and express the
realm of that ultimate reality which since Kant was held to be closed to
conceptual understanding and rational discourse” (Cooper vii). In addition,
R W Hapburn avers that “if the experience of nature or reality is to be
enlarged and transformed by art, art’s mimesis of nature cannot be
described as a naïve mirroring” (244). For instance, painting at its best
exhibits a conquest of the visible world. Quoting Mondrian, Rollo May,
remarks of his painting thus:
My evolution as a painter has been from the figure… I’ve had to tear out
the reality and then I’m left with only the abstract form of these, I’ve had to
tear out the colour, annihilate the curves and finally I am left with simply a
proportion and simply straight lines and relationships (55).

Representation, according to Goodman “is apt or subtle to the extent

that the artist or writer grasps fresh and significant relationships and
devises means for making them manifest” (Hepburn 244). Schilling for
instance, compares philosophy with art and agrees that art is
representative of reality. According to him, art is at once the only true and
eternal organon of philosophy which ever and again continues to speak to
us of what philosophy cannot depict in external form, namely the
unconscious element in acting and producing, and its original identity with
the conscious” (Eagleton 134).

Conclusion
It must be borne in mind that, there are various theories of art and
none of them enjoys general acceptance. The Mimetic theory of art which
appears to be the oldest of the theories originates from Plato’s conception
of reality. In this essay, we have tried to expose the porosity of Plato’s idea
of imitation. Art is not imitation of imitation or copy of copy. It is neither
useless nor dangerous and it does not lead to immorality because it is
imitational. On the other hand, while we agree with Aristotle’s view of art as
imitation, we however do not accept that art is restricted to only literature.
Drama (Tragedy/comedy) and poetry. Other forms of art such as music,
dance, sculpture, architecture, paintings, moves or films etc are genuine
arts and are all imitative of different aspects of reality or nature in relation to
man’s experience.

The point being made is that the term “imitation” connotes “re-
presentation”, “re-creation”. It does not imply copying, mimicking or making
a counterfeit of anything whatsoever. Hence, we employed the concept of
imitation and representation interchangeably to portray the nature, features
and role of art.

Art is therefore essentially an imitation or representation of reality. In

representing reality, the artist’s presents structures and harmonies in a
much broader context than mere self-expression. Art is decentralized,
dispersed, and given to all in the form of a certain focus of attention,
brought to bear on the world as it is. Thus a work of art (visual, audio or
literary) can modify one’s view of the world by strengthening or weakening
one’s sense of the propriety or the value of certain very general attitudes.
For instance, an attitude of openness to mystery, or of openness only to the
clearly-defined, clearly lit and comprehensible.

We therefore conclude that as imitation and representation, art partly

determines one’s view of nature or reality and also one’s sense of self.
Following this, we agree with Richard Sheursterman that:
The gap Plato maliciously posited between art and reality has become an
unquestioned dogma… But, in an obvious way, the idea of this gap is quite
simply false. Art is undeniably real, it exists concretely and vividly in our
world and in our lives,…of course, we can always distinguish between a
real object and its artistic representation, but this does not entail that the
representation is either unreal or intrinsically deceptive (52).
Philosophy of Music

Philosophy of music is the study of fundamental questions about the

nature and value of music and our experience of it. Like any “philosophy of
X”, it presupposes knowledge of its target. However, unlike philosophy of
science, say, the target of philosophy of music is a practice most people
have a significant background in, merely as a result of being members of a
musical culture. Music plays a central role in many people’s lives. Thus, as
with the central questions of metaphysics and epistemology, not only can
most people quickly grasp the philosophical questions music raises, they
tend to have thought about some of those questions before encountering
the academic discipline itself. (This is as good a place as any to note that I,
like most in the English-speaking philosophical world, focus exclusively on
Western musical traditions. For criticism of this tendency, see Alperson
2009. For some exceptions to it, see S. Davies 2001: 254–94) and Feagin
2007.)

Music is perhaps the art that presents the most philosophical puzzles.
Unlike painting, its works often have multiple instances, none of which can
be identified with the work itself. Thus, the question of what exactly the
work is is initially more puzzling than the same question about works of
painting, which appear (at least initially) to be ordinary physical objects.
Unlike much literature, the instances of a work are performances, which
offer interpretations of the work, yet the work can also be interpreted
(perhaps in a different sense) independently of any performance, and
performances themselves can be interpreted. This talk of “interpretation”
points to the fact that we find music an art steeped with meaning, and yet,
unlike drama, pure instrumental music has no obvious semantic content.
This quickly raises the question of why we should find music so valuable.
Central to many philosophers’ thinking on these subjects has been music’s
apparent ability to express emotions while remaining an abstract art in
some sense.
Analytic Perspectives in the Philosophy of Music

The philosophy of music attempts to answer questions concerning

the nature and value of musical practices. Contemporary analytic
philosophy has tackled these issues in its characteristically piecemeal
approach, and has revived interest in questions about the ontological
nature of musical works, the experience of musical expressiveness, the
value of music, and other considerations. Priority is normally granted to the
philosophical clarification of pure (or absolute) music, that is, music that is
not accompanied by lyrics or a program and is otherwise lacking any
reference to extra-musical reality. This is because most of the puzzles in
the philosophy of music arise with particular strength in the case of pure
music. For instance, although it is easy to explain why we would describe
as “sad” a song with lyrics conveying a sad story, it is harder to see why we
would call a piece of instrumental music “sad.” Unless otherwise stated, the
word “music” in this article refers to pure music, that is, instrumental music.

While it would be hard to point to uncontroversial solutions to any of

these problems, this is not to deny that substantial conceptual clarifications
have been made. In the case of musical expressiveness, a fundamental
distinction has been traced, and is widely accepted, between the
expression of emotions as the manifestation of psychological states and
expressiveness as the mere presentation of the outward characteristics
associated with emotions. Conflating the former with the latter gives rise to
the mistaken assumption that emotional descriptions of music must refer to
an actual emotional state either in the listener or perhaps in the composer.

The field of musical ontology is largely a reflection of debates in

general ontology, although some issues are peculiar to the musical case.
For instance, philosophers have debated whether the differences in
appreciative focus across musical traditions warrant a different ontological
characterisation of works in those traditions. Consider the case of rock
music: the main focus is often the record as opposed to the live
performance of the piece, which is arguably the critical focus in the
Western classical tradition. This may suggest that we ought to construe the
work of rock music as ontologically different from the work of classical
music, as the former is a track, whereas the latter is a work for
performance.

Finally, analytic philosophy of music has attempted to solve the riddle

of musical value: how is pure music valuable to our lives if it makes no
reference whatsoever to our world? The most original solutions to this
problem have tried to show that it is precisely the music’s abstractness that
explains its value and appeal.

Romantic Realism

In a world full of turmoil and uncertainty such as ours, fine art can
provide emotional fuel to sustain positive, life-affirming, universal,
humanistic values. Because all art acts as a shortcut to our most
fundamental premises (whether good, bad, rational, or irrational), it
possess irresistible vitality and puissance for both immediate “gut” impact
and lasting resonance.

Through an aesthetic process of bypassing our conscious value

system and going straight to the “heart" of our unconsciously held
premises, art makes our most deep-seated animating principles — our core
values — accessible to us in physical form. This is why we feel such strong
reactions of “I love this!” or “I hate that!” when encountering any art form.
Here, I will confine myself to the visual arts.

Great art is a representational vision of values that dramatizes the

beauties of the world and man’s compatible and efficacious place in it
through images that portray a heighten reality, one that not only brings
selected aspects of real life into sharp focus through compelling aesthetics
but also communicates ideas. Classical Realism seeks perfection and
universality, the idea of the ideal; e.g., ancient Greek sculpture.
 Realist Realism seeks accuracy and specificity; e.g., 20th-century
sterile, idea-absent “photo” realistic paintings. Romantic Realism seeks
personal expression of values, imbuing art with feelings for ideas that the
artist holds passionately about life and humankind, thereby suffusing the
work with a glowing emotional essence.

Unlike 19th-century Romantics, the 21st-century Romantic Realist

does not flee to history, mythology, the remote or exotic for subject matter
by which to express individualized imagery, brushstrokes, or bravado. The
contemporary Romantic expresses values through images of the present,
the here and now, the real and relevant.

Today’s Romantic uses form (the physical presentation) to

communicate content (human values via subject matter) through individual
style (emotional expression), thereby making the means and the end
merge, blend, and re-emerge as one totality of experience that unifies
mind, body, and soul.

The whole then is much greater than the sum of its parts. Herein lay
representational art’s ability to afford us a spiritual experience as well as an
aesthetic one. The spiritual in art is not evoked by an escape from
recognizable reality (as in unintelligible art) but by an embrace of it —
existence and consciousness unified and experienced as one beautiful
entity.

Ugliness and cruelty and tragedy are part of life, but the Romantic
Realist knows that in art it is positive, life-affirming values that we need to
see — to feel — in order to maintain the courage and energy to bring our
own highest and most promising visions of values into existence in the real
world.
 In this brilliant scientific age that permits travel to outer space as
routine, the time has come to initiate a journey to inner space, the
humanities, to discover a deeper understanding of man as a spiritual
creature who needs access to the profound meanings of life, meanings that
are made mentally understandable through rational philosophy and, in turn,
are made physically manifest through art, especially through the objectively
intelligible and emotion-evoking power of Romantic Realism.

By enjoying and championing art that promotes beauty and life-

affirming values passionately expressed, we celebrate ourselves, the best
within each of us and the potential for all of us. The Italian Renaissance
made ideas the prime mover that brought fresh life to the humanistic values
established by the Greek creators of Western civilization, reason,
responsibility, individualism, beauty, excellence, and after a long and dark
age, those ideas were re-expressed anew through the magnificent art of
the quatrocentro.

But the Italian Renaissance was not a revival of the Greek ideal.
Artists of those wondrous days expressed the same primary values as their
Greek forebears but tailored them to their own time and place: David, not
Apollo.

Today in art, repeating the distant past is lazy. Damning the present
is nonproductive. Distorting beauty is destructive.

Pretending that “installations” or “performances” of nonsense in

museums and galleries are art forms is a worn out, 20th-century con game
that needs to be dismissed. But making time stop still on canvas or in
bronze in order to delight in and contemplate the perfections of our world
and the possibilities of each of us in the family of humankind is sublime

Renaissance artists of the 21st century may well be the valiant,

romantic “culture” crusaders of our day, their uplifting images leading and
encouraging us to command the shores of a glorious future armed not with
a sword but with a rose.

Romantic Realism in Philippine Art

Filipino artist, Andy Cubi has a natural artistic ability full of

observation and realism. He is a romantic realist painter with an extensive
use of color variations, articulate use of light and shadow with breathtaking
realism, reflection and life. It is through his unique arrangement and
depiction of the subject matter that he achieves an idiosyncratic style by
portraying beauty and solitude. His works demonstrates his tendency to
capture the figure from all angles and to place the figure in shallow space,
allowing her contours to produce the strong linear design that balances the
picture.

Realist realism seeks accuracy and specificity while romantic realism

seeks personal expression of values, imbuing art with feelings for ideas
that the artist holds passionately about life and humanity; thus, infusing the
work with a glowing emotional essence. Drawing the female figure tells a
story that harks back to the beginning of time while working within and
against traditions that are both sacred and sexual. Drawing the nude figure
is an experience that is both necessary and profound.

Andy Cubi’s pays close attention to the attributes of color, pattern,

and design giving structure to solitude by placing the lone figure in a
geometrical configuration. He blends his masterpieces with drama,
romance and spirituality. His female forms require a particular kind of
sanguinity to see the importance of the figure as a subject matter in a time
when many do not consider the human being as the crowning glory of art.

Andy Cubi has captured the collector’s hearts through his oil pastel
paintings of women. Known for his “Mother and Child” oil pastel paintings,
his nude series has expressed the beauty of Filipina women. Whether oils
or pastels, Andy Cubi’s artworks share the same sparkle and poise,
portraying the mood and personality of the female figure whose inner
quintessence comes through in a quiet and endearing manner.

Sources of Information:
 https://www.academia.edu/796499/ART_AS_IMITATION
 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/music/
 https://www.iep.utm.edu/music-an/
 https://www.newsmax.com/AlexandraYork/Fine-Art-Realism-in-art-
Renaissance-Expression-art/2015/09/28/id/693730/
 http://www.macuha-artgallery.com/blog/andy-cubi-collection/

QUIZ
MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. The Greek word “mimes” means?

a) Imitation
b) Copying
c) Remaking
2. It is for him that beauty is one of such forms or ideas that manifest in
particular beautiful things.
a) Socrates
b) Plato
c) Aristotle
3. Representation can be seen as?
a) Standing on
b) Standing to
c) Standing for
4. According to him “representation, as I understand it, is characterized by
a prepositional content… it involves the telling of a story (89).
a) Aristotle
b) Ebele Eko
c) Roger Scruton
5. “ _______ is more philosophical and more elevated than history,
because while the later records what did happen, the former reveals what
should happen and what must happen according to the laws of the
universe and psychology” (Aristotle 4).
a) Music
b) Art
c) Poetry
6. A doctrine which is believed that negative emotions were then purged in
a harmless and healthy way. Aristotle’s Doctrine is called?
a) Carthysis
b) Carthesis
c) Cartesis
7. The one who believed that art represents or imitates the nature of the
society in which it is found in which it is not a mere copying or mimicking of
nature or reality. But the nature itself.
a) May Rollo
b) Cooper
c) Nietzsche
8. According to Goodman_________ “is apt or subtle to the extent that the
artist or writer grasps fresh and significant relationships and devises means
for making them manifest” (Hepburn 244).
a) Imitation
b) Representation
c) Formation
9. _________ is the study of fundamental questions about the nature and
value of music and our experience of it.
a) Philosophy of Music
b) Philosophy of Melody
c) Philosophy of Art
10. It seeks personal expression of values, imbuing art with feelings for
ideas that the artist holds passionately about life and humankind, thereby
suffusing the work with a glowing emotional essence.
a) Formalism
b) Idealism
c) Romantic Realism

KEY TO CORRECTION
1. A
2. B
3. C
4. C
5. C
6. B
7. A
8. B
9. A
10.C
IDENTIFICATION

1. A Filipino artist with a naturalistic ability full of observation and realism.

Answer: Andy Cubi

2. The ____________ does not flee to history, mythology, the remote or

exotic for subject matter by which to express individualized imagery,
brushstrokes, or bravado.
Answer: 21st Century Romantic Realist

3. ________ seeks personal expression of values, imbuing art with feelings

for ideas that the artist holds passionately about life and humankind,
thereby suffusing the work with a glowing emotional essence.
Answer: Romantic Realism

4. The ________ which appears to be the oldest of the theories originates

from Plato’s conception of reality.
Answer: Mimetic theory of art

5. He avers that “if the experience of nature or reality is to be enlarged and

transformed by art, art’s mimesis of nature cannot be described as a naïve
mirroring” (244)
Answer: RW Hapburn

6. He believed that art is at once the only true and eternal organon of
philosophy which ever and again continues to speak to us of what
philosophy cannot depict in external form, namely the unconscious element
in acting and producing, and its original identity with the conscious”
(Eagleton 134).
Answer: Schilling

7. According to Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary it is mean “to be like

or to make a likeness of something” (Hornsby 423).
Answer: Imitation

8. Imitation theory of art is also known as?

Answer: Formalism

9. According to him “… we cannot see them with the naked eyes but only
with the intellect.”
Answer: Plato

10. The Greek word “mimes” means “imitation” which implies “re-
representation” rather than _______?
Answer: Copying