[598b]
“Consider, then, this very
point. To which is painting directed in every case, to the imitation of
reality as it is1 or of appearance as it appears? Is it an imitation of a phantasm
or of the truth?” “Of a phantasm,2” he said.
“Then the mimetic art is far removed3 from truth, and this, it seems, is the
reason why it can produce everything, because it touches or lays hold of
only a small part of the object and that a phantom4; as, for example, a painter, we say, will paint us a
cobbler, a carpenter, and other craftsmen,
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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