Last week in class when we were discussing different types of religious arts, you could notice how there were very significant distinctions in the art styles in each different religion. For example, Christian art–as sponsored by the church–seemed to focus on portraying the biblical figures in a very high esteemed and spiritual light. All the biblical figures were sure to be exaggerated in size, color and shape to guarantee that they would be the center of attention. Artists had to portray the biblical figures in the best way as possible, and it was blasphemous to paint them even remotely similar to regular humans. Similarly, other religions also portrayed their godly figures as larger, more vibrant and more outer-worldly than they would with humans. It made sense, given how in all these religious cultures took worshipping their god(s) very seriously, and thus their art was used to visually illustrate the significance and dominance of the deities.

However, when we went onto talking about Islamic art, I noticed several of the artworks placed more of an emphasis on shapes, patterns and geometric figures rather than a monopoly of godly paintings. This reminded me of a section in Plato’s The Republic in which Socrates discusses the “theory of the forms”. I can’t quote verbatim since I don’t have my copy of the book with me, but you can try searching it up or skimming through this link to get the gist of it.

I’ll try to summarize my interpretation of his theory, which is that there are several levels of enlightenment, the level of copies (representation or replications of objects, like art), the level of the material world (the physical objects around us), and the level of the forms (which is made up of abstract ideas and concepts) and we must ascend these levels in order to achieve “the good”. Each level is superior to the level under it. For example, it would be more enlightening to be in the subject, the scenery, or the moment rather than just look at a photograph of it, which makes sense; it is better to experience a landscape rather than just look at a picture of one. That is how the level of the material world is better than the level of replication.

However, the level of the forms is a bit tricky. Think about a triangle. What really is a triangle? You can draw a three sided figure on the board and that would be a representation of a triangle, but ultimately that is inferior to the idea of a triangle. All the properties of a triangle, such as the angles summing up to 180 degrees or the lines being perfectly straight are captured with the IDEA of a triangle, but no matter how much you try to draw a triangle in the material world, there will always be slight imperfections (line is crooked or not entirely straight, etc.) and thus the CONCEPT of a triangle is always better than any other “triangle”. Similarly, within the level of forms, Plato also thinks highly of the world of numbers and mathematics. Think about the concept of three; you probably picture three objects, but that’s not really what the definition or concept of three is, isn’t it? That only mimics the form of three, but isn’t three itself. What is the concept of “three-ness”? Does three-ness exist within the material world?  There really isn’t a definition of three, it’s an abstract concept. This can be applied to many ideas and fields; what is color? Isn’t it comprised of different wavelengths that are constantly changing? Yet we try to delude ourselves into thinking that the concept of color exists in our world, when in reality, we don’t really have an idea what color really is.

Basically to sum up, Plato thinks that the abstract world of ideas and concepts is superior to the physical world, and to strive to achieve the “good”, you must think more abstractly and about the concepts of objects rather than what they appear to be. This was a long tangent, but looking at the pictures of Islamic art of colorful patterns and shapes just made me think about this theory. Honestly, I don’t really like how many religions portray their gods in art, like they’re trying to portray a concept in which they don’t really know what they actually look like. Instead, I’m more fascinated by the geometry used in Islamic art, and I’m enthralled by how they focus more on the beauty, the symmetry, the natural harmony of patterns of shapes. Perhaps how these cultures portray these geometric figures and patterns mirror how they value them more than they do with deities, and this allows them to see the natural patterns in the world and understand abstract concepts, for example, calculus. Again, no representation of concepts can ever be as good as the concept itself, and I have no idea whether the Islamic people knew anything about Plato’s the Theory of the forms, but it is interesting to see the correlation that the eastern cultures that are focused on shapes, forms and abstract figures in their art are the same ones that are responsible for many of the famous discoveries in science and mathematics throughout history.