Ficino’s View On Art And His Practice Of Poetics

When the marvelous perception,that is,the spirit of the Renaissance,come before us,the acute reasoning of Pico Mirandola,and the riveting rhetoric of Desiderius Erasmus,each could undoubtedly be professed as an emphasized spirit of scholars of the epoch.And we could barely deny,what Pico does in De hominis dignitate clearly delineates a new way for the speculation of humanity,while Erasmus’ s Stultitiae Laus(or Moriae Encomium),interestingly draws a concise picture of a certain culture.But we could turn to Ficino,the Quatrocento Florentine philosopher,who ardently amalgamates the enterprise of Pico’s image of humanity and Erasmus’ s culture enthusiasm,from which we may apprehend a more detailed and systematic exposition.This historical stature of the Ficino was not fully recognized by the English academics until Paul Oscar Kristeller’s the Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino,hitherto the stature became more vigorously manifested.To name a few analyses that would mark the change of direction of Ficino study,they are,the systematic and holistic philosophy and his unique way of thinking proclaimed by Kristeller,and the typical subject-object model applied to the speculation of the individual and the cosmos,from which we may no longer characterize Ficino’s teaching as a mere synthesis of classical and religious thoughts,as well as blame his overall contents of magic and astrology.From this perspective,Ficino’s obvious historical stature as a successful philosopher and theologian is confirmed and extended.In nearly four hundred years,his influence extended in these four aspects.Firstly,as a precise version of Plato’s Latin translation,his Platonis Opera,along with his profound commentaries,are widely read until the dawn of the Romantic movement in 19 th century.His translation and elucidation of Plotinus and Hermetica corpus lastingly affects the European Neoplatonism and occultism study.Secondly,the great revival of Platonic philosophy,consciously initiated by Ficino,effectively takes the helm dominated by prosaic scholastics,as well as activates the secularization of philosophy,which in turn broaden the horizon of the speculative thought of scholars,to common people.Thirdly,the concepts of ration soul and platonic love Ficino defined and applied,the idealized and ordered way of signification is built under an emerging correlation between individual consciousness and a cooperated cosmogony.What stimulates the Golden age of Florentine philosophy is the kind of conflation commenced by his fabulous symbols and meanings,from which the Florentines would be truly designated to the exclamation of humanity in a way of speculation.Not least of all,following representation of influences,the holistic dialectics in his hermeneutics,symbolic language and allegorical teaching subtly manifest a perspective of related signification that consciously existed between philosophical discourse and artistic representation,which make the artists willingly outlined the chiaroscuro of nonplatonic enigma and the mystical cosmogony.According to these coordinate perceptions,this dissertation will value its own order of transposition with the ad hoc motional order of the cosmos,thus to illuminate how Ficino’s teaching can be transformed into a Ficinian poetics.I think,the original form of the becoming culture and its samples should be reflected in our Renaissance study,by an effort to unlock its veil and amplify its details.To practice this kind of effort,this dissertation shares the needs of delving into its philosophical,theological,aesthetical hypothesises and their reciprocal representation.For the first part,some key concepts would be discussed in advance in a way of demonstrating the primal performance and its speculative joints.As in the first chapter,I will select several key figures with the similar range of thought,though not the definite idea,to illustrate them in a preliminary sense,then further elucidation will be given in the second chapter,for instance the crucial part soul and love played in Ficinian poetics.For Ficino’s philosophy,though its syncretism thing should be considered,the rigorous speculative system and dialectical perception on humanities in his methods will always be a bona fide part to deal with.Provided with the overall idea of this method,the conception of Beauty is still used in a classical sense,that is the Goodness and the Beauty finally converge in the same hypostasis.In a neoplatonic universe,Beauty signifies where orients the ascension,so it locates itself in a cycle of interpretation among the absolute emanation of the God,the motional figure of the cosmos and the conscious ascending of human soul.Thus,having been imbued with nutritious neoplatonic theory,Ficino’s soul claims its territory in the cosmos,while the full-fledged platonic love potentially percepts the counterparts,altogether echoing themselves in philosophical a priori in history,and showcases itself in the practice of Ficinian poetics and the evolution of artistic representation.For Ficino,the theologian,Beauty,and its origin can be easily seen in religious and theological background.For this part,cultural and historical background will be the focus of the first chapter,aiming at illuminates how Ficino and his Platonic Academy reflect the time as well as influence the time,thus in preparation for the details in Ficinian poetics,especially the anthropology in the third chapter.The mission of rebuilding prisci theologi transplants itself to the Mosaic image of the wise Socrates,the monotheistic providence of Hermes,the emanating One of Plotinus,and even presents itself in traditional magic and its mystical connotations in astrology,for which the vigorous countenance of the syncretism of Ficino is shown quid pro quo in theirs fusions and blends.On this ground,where philosophy and religion are not actually divided,are formally evaluated by the likeness of their cognitive value,and dialectically represent where the One and the many reciprocally signify the balance and creation.For the balance where it holds,it points the ad hoc stability of Christian teachings,while the creation exemplifies the movement and emanation of the universe.From this view,Beauty,the essential stimulus of the ascending soul,besides its apparent fusion,it inevitably highlights the bridge between Christian teaching and philosophical dialectics,whereas human beings can resort to the unity of practical reception and self-consciousness in the ideal structure built by the creator,and exlucidates itself in a unity that smoothes the poetical representation as well as embellishes the methods of its poetics.As for the exact aesthetic theory in Ficino’s thought,we cannot easily find something about specific artistic representation except for the abstract Beauty as to the condition of ideas and its conspicuous derivativeness.For this consideration,concepts and narratives about art and literature will be collected in Ficino’s works in the third chapter,and gradually unveiled the basic form,structure and practical attitude related to Ficinian poetics for the body to its extension.W?adys?aw Tatarkiewicz puts forth two types of art that Ficino would recognize: one is guided by a severe principle,as for architecture and painting,the other is inspired by furor divina,as for poetry.This classical heritage of artist view behind the transcendent role of Beauty,we may discern some practical values when we probe the philosophical and theological nexus between their contents and theoretical methods.For one thing,as this view coordinated with the cosmogony,an enriched symbolic metaphorical system would come beforehand.For the other,as this view combines itself with the quality of syncretism,abundant allegories,which are fertilized a priori,would be invented.These types of Ficinian practice and their extension beyond certain ideas,which epitomize an era when poetical theory collaborate with mythical interpretation,would stimulate the unique transformation from the provocative beauty in metaphors to one that in the artistic representation.From the three-fold way above,by a kind of progressive way,this dissertation considers,illuminated by these distinctive threads in the idea of beauty,Ficino’s thought can be presented as a special poetical practice in accord with its theoretical contents and methods of reflection.As for this preoccupation,I will choose the soul and the love as two essential ideas,from which we derive the symbolic system and dialectical tendency by clarifying the cosmic order and its principle in his syncretism,thus to coincide with artistic representations,to contemplate their collision with artistic representations.Following the trail of this flight,those reasonable counterparts in the motion of universe can be recognized,either by the spiritual peculiarities in human being,or by the wealth of body and mind,both would eventually lead us to a unique hypostasis of self-consciousness in the enhanced dialectics between humanity and divinity.As to the exact ideas presented by this trajectory,the divinely revealed madness,and the psychologically depicted melancholia,which serve as a kind of heightened sensibility in Ficino,coincide with the dialectically manifested three Graces,signify the final unity and the progressing translation of its values among the ideas of soul and body,man and God,the part and the whole.Whereas the meaningful row of three Graces Dante cherishes as the ladder of divine ascension of consciousness,the wisdom with its dialectal wings in Ficinian poetics summoned the artists to a convivium decorated by the image of the sublunar life and the symbolical connotations from the Republic.For the first part in this dissertation,I will collect basic traits of ideas from the dialogues between Ficino and other eminent historical figures whose thoughts somehow mirror the Ficinian methods.Secondly,developing these basic traits,the theory of soul and platonic love will be my focus to the recourse from essential characteristics to the necessary symbolic deduction.Thirdly,I will resort to the exact expositions about Beauty and artistic beauty in Ficino’s works.on one hand try to vindicate the relation between the massive cultural representation and his related description,on the other hand,treat the mythography and music theory as focal points in Ficino the practice of poetics.Lastly,From the aspects of music I will turn to the analysis on the idea of Spiritus.Spiritus,who can be recognized as a spiritual bond for body,mind,and the universe,presents itself in our life with a consistent ability to signify the cosmic order dialectically,which then enforce the divine chain in Ficino.More akin to the key,the denotation of the Spiritus helps ignite the fire of human mind from the divine traits of madness and melancholia,thus to vivify the concrete artistic representations.According to this progressive modeled scheme,it is ideas related with art in Ficino that this dissertation aims to classify,and what this dissertation means for by claiming the practice of poetics is that how Ficino make the tissues effective both theoretically and practically demonstrated by the poetically signified influence of his thought in the artistic practice.