Philosophy and Art

In the Republic (Book 10), Plato affirms that art is only the imitation of nature and takes us away from the truth. For him, art consists in reproducing what already exists: art is only a copy of copy. Because, the first model of any thing is the Idea. In this sense, the works of art are, for him, an illusion: they cannot help us to make a philosophical conversion. But, against Plato, we say that art makes us happily blind. Indeed, man is characterized by desire. The real object of desire is an idea. Art tries to make real this object by representing it in a concrete way. Art is thus attached to the human work and offers us a world where the useful and the pleasant are united. In this perspective, art is the search for pleasure as a real end. Thus, it is a source of happiness. Without art, life would be a mistake.