Plato, Ion, section 532e

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Epinomis, or Nocturnal Council

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[532e] For in regard to this question I asked you just now, observe what a trifling commonplace it was that I uttered—a thing that any man might know—namely, that when one has acquired a whole art the inquiry is the same. Let us just think it out thus: there is an art of painting as a whole?

Ion
Yes.

Socrates
And there are and have been many painters, good and bad?

Ion
Certainly.

Socrates
Now have you ever found anybody who is skilled in pointing out the successes and failures among the works of Polygnotus¹ son of Aglaophon, but unable to do so with the works of the other painters;

1 A celebrated painter who came from Thasos and adorned public buildings in Athens about 470 B.C. Cf. Gorg. 488 B.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.

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