“An Alternative Approach to the Nature of Art” by Mohammad Zaimaran

Defining art is a task both simple and impossible. For those who consider art to be a definite matter, art, like beauty, takes shape in the mind of the audience. Of course, some also regard art as a phenomenon whose meaning is determined by its creator, and there are also those who believe art is generally indefinable. In their view, art—or better to say, the work of art—is anything that subjects the audience to aesthetic pleasure.

Generally speaking, before the history of art fell within the scope of epistemic activities, philosophy emerged, and philosophers from the very beginning engaged in detailed discussions concerning the nature of art and aesthetic responses. In Plato's philosophy, the visual arts are discussed under the terms mimesis and techne, and beauty, from his perspective, is that which represents the truth of phenomena. In his view, all visual arts (such as sculpture, painting, and architecture) and literary arts such as epic, lyric, and elegiac poetry, as well as arts that arise from the combination of the two, all fall under techne.

Download the PDF file of part one from Server One | Server Two