There is a gradual shift in the understanding and value of poetry from the Classical to the Medieval to Renaissance age. Plato and Aristotle in the classical age considered the poet to be a mere imitator. This belief was to some extent argued by the medieval philosophers like Horace who considered poetry to be a craft with rules and conventions and provided the readers with wisdom and moral values. The Renaissance philosophers hold the poet in very high regard and defend his case by stating the value of poetry.
Sidney in an Apology for Poetry deals with the value and function of poetry, the nature of imitation, and the concept of nature. He treats the subject of poetry much more broadly. The first part defends the dignity of poetry, presenting its superiority to philosophy and history. The second part deals with the allegations on the poet made by Plato and other philosophers and the third part stating the position of poetry at that time.
Sidney extends Horace’s argument that function of poetry is to instruct and delight and states that by both teaching and delighting the poet moves people to welcome goodness. He counters Plato’s allegation of poet as an imitator by stating that the poet’s imitation does not reproduce anything in nature but portrays the idealised situations. The imitation also is a craft which requires practice and therefore the poet cannot be banished from the society.
The renaissance writers have a very strong stand on the significance of poet and his poetry in the society. There is an elevation of the artist. By then art had been commercialised and provided patronage which made their stand in the society more visible and strong. The audience and the viewer where also given some agency around this time.
Since the period of Renaissance witnessed the movement of paintings from the domain of mechanical to liberal arts, the Renaissance artists’ views on Art and Beauty also gain importance while speaking about Renaissance aesthetics.
The Renaissance artists’ perception of beauty was determined by his philosophical environment, his visual experience (the ‘period eye’), the demands of his patrons and also by his attempts to enhance his professional status in society to equal that of poets and architects. The depiction of beauty in Renaissance art is shown to be more complex than a mere photograph-like representation of sexuality or of a person’s physical appearance. Renaissance art created physically perfect images resulting from scholarly expectation, the artist’s ambitions and his developing skills. Renaissance portrait artists tried to avoid realistic interpretation, emphasizing instead the positive attributes of their subjects, both physical and political. It can be said that high Renaissance artists aspired to beauty and harmony more than realism. One artist who relished in challenging the accepted formulae of beauty and methods of painting was Leonardo da Vinci. Their paintings may have been based on nature but they had no interest in mere replication and looked for the Ultimate Truth instead. It was this that provided artists with an ideal of perfection: their aesthetics. Renaissance theorists and artists developed their idea of ‘Humanism’. Humanism was a way of thinking which attached more importance to Man and less importance to God. It imbued Renaissance art with its unique flavor, as exemplified in works like Leonardo’s Mona Lisa (a non-religious painting), Michelangelo’s David – a more human than religious statue.
References :
Habib, Rafey. “The Early Modern Period.” A History of Literary Criticism and Theory: From Plato to the Present. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Pub., 2008. 261-65. Print.
Haughton, Neil. “Perceptions of Beauty in Renaissance Art.” Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology 36.02 (1998). Web.
Sartwell.C, Cooper.D, J.Margolis. “A Companion to Aesthetics.” Haldane, Medieval and Renaissance Aesthetics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. Web.
Sidney. Nortan Anthology of Theory & Criticism. Ed.Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. 323-26. Print.
Worked on by: Preeti Gnanasekar and Janhavi Chadha
Critical Aesthetics, 2015 