School Of Philosophy In Athens example essay topic

... or 'On Nature' (peri), in three books, was written in the Ionian dialect, and is the oldest monument of Greek prose. Considerable fragments of it have come down to us. The language is bold, harsh, and figurative. The style is so careless that the syntactical relations of the words are often hard to perceive; and the thoughts are profound, and Lucretius attacks him on the ground From his gloomy view of life he is often called 'the Weeping Philosopher,' as Democritus is known as 'the Laughing Philosopher. ' It is above all in dealing with Heraclitus that we are made to feel the importance of personality in shaping systems of philosophy. He is likened to Michelangelo because Michelangelo showed personality and character in his works like "David" and "The Pieta" and the "Sistine Chapel", that made him a great artist and sculptor.

Parmenides: (396-314 BC) Greek philosopher who defended the philosophy of Plato against the criticism of Aristotle. As the head of the Academy in the 4th century, Parmenides held the quasi-Pythagorean view that the Platonic Forms, including even the individual human soul, are all numbers. Socrates: (470-399 BC) A philosopher of Athens, generally regarded as one of the wisest people of all time He's the one who brought the attention of the Greeks toward questions of ethics and virtue. Socrates himself left no writings, and most of our knowledge of him and his teachings comes from the dialogues of his most famous pupil, Plato. Socrates is described as having neglected his own affairs, instead spending his time discussing virtue, justice, and piety wherever his fellow citizens congregated, seeking wisdom about right conduct so that he might guide the moral and intellectual improvement of Athens. Socrates equated virtue with the knowledge of one's true self, holding that no one knowingly does wrong.

In the painting he is having a discussion with Alcibiades, Xenophon and Alexander the Great, and it reflects how Socrates loved to talk as he would in the Athens marketplace where he held conversations with towns people and this led to people loving him or hating him. Averroes: (1126-1198) His greatest work was his commentaries on Aristotle. He attempted to delimit the separate domains of faith and reason, pointing out the two need not be reconciled because they did not conflict. He was condemned by the Catholic Church for the Averroism contention that philosophical truth derived from reason and not from faith. Pythagoras: (582-507 BC) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, founder of the Pythagorean school.

The Pythagoras is best known for two teachings: the transmigration of souls and the theory that numbers constitute the true nature of things. Epicurus: (341-270 BC) Greek philosopher who founded another school of philosophy in Athens. Adopted the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus maintaining that all objects and events, including human lives, are in reality nothing more than physical interactions among minute indestructible particles. As they fall towards the center of the earth, atoms swerve from their paths to collide with each other and form temporary compound beings and all of this happens purely by chance. Zeno: (333-265 BC) Greek philosopher, attended Plato's Academy then opened his own school. Founder of Stoicism, a philosophy that asserted that virtue consisted in a will which is in agreement with nature The meaning of the School of Athens: The School of Athens and The Disputa have become the paradigms for the classical style in painting.

In the School of Athens the arch is repeated in the barrel vaults of the architecture behind the figures, a building that reflects the contemporary plans of Bramante for the new St Peter's. In this image the single point perspective system is structured so that it moves to a point between the heads of Plato and Aristotle, emphasizing their seminal importance for the discipline of philosophy. (Paoletti, 348) The heads of Plato and Aristotle are amongst the smallest in the painting but are the only ones with he sky in the background. This could symbolize their importance and their connection in terms of philosophy to the heavens.

Their gestures, Plato with his hand to the sky and Aristotle with his to the ground, are enhanced by the architecture. "The arch if completed as a circle would underline the extended hand of Aristotle. This is the sort of finely calculated geometry helps organize the painting". (Daley, 77) In comparing it to the Disputa, the unfinished church in which the meeting of the theologians; (on earth and in heaven) is taking place, "is complemented by the vision of Paradise, as natural theology is completed by divine revelation.

In the School of Athens the hall is indeed finished but the sky is empty, because philosophy alone cannot lead to the understanding of revealed mysteries". (Daley) There is a connection as in the Disputa he shows a lot of the sky and in School of Athens there is much less of it. This is probably because he was painting the Stanze for the Vatican and had to show that the theologists had higher powers or had more significance than the philosophers were. On the collar of his tunic is the Raphael's signature: R.V.S. M, which is Raphael Urbinas Sua Manu. Artists did this as there was believed to be forgery and they wanted to claim the works as their own.

Conclusion: The School of Athens was such and still is one of the most important pieces of art in history. This painting shows the artistic brilliance of Raphael and goes well beyond than showing several philosophers of different generations all converged in one hall. It depicts the different philosophical thought that was going on in ancient Greece and how each of the great philosophers was related to the two main ideas of Plato and Aristotle. Painters in that era were very much influenced on what to paint by whom they were commissioned by. The Catholic Church commissioned many projects and their main goal was to glorify the church. The thought of even questioning the church was interpreted to be treason and punishable by death.

That is why in the School of Athens, the philosophers are shown in a way not undermining or questioning the thought of the theologians in the Disputa. The School of Athens is just as the title says, school. It is indoors and almost everything is covered except for sky you can see above Plato and Aristotle's head. This shows that maybe only these two come closest to relating to the theologians who are the ones which communicate and have direct contact to the heavens, hence Disputa as they (the ones on earth and the ones in heaven) are having an argument. The pure brilliance of the man is shown in his artwork and the School of Athens is no exception, actually being one of his and Renaissance arts' best piece.

Bibliography

The Draftsman Raphael"Arts and Ideas " Ames-Lewis, Francis Fleming, William Yale University Press Harcourt Brace College Publishers New Haven & London, 1986 New York & London, 1995"20,000 years of world painting"Raphael " Jaffe, Hans L.
C. Jones, Roger and Penny, Nicholas Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers Yale University Press New York, 1967 New Haven & London, 1983"The Vatican"Art in Renaissance Italy " Daley, John Paoletti, John T.
and Radke, Gary M. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers New York, 1975 New York, 1997.