I was highly amused and intrigued by Plato's perspective of art and how it's merely an imitation. I enjoyed the extended example between the painter and the carpenter, even the slight acknowledgment of a higher being creating the single 'couch' and that being the true one. I didn't feel truly offended as I read it, just amused at how he viewed everyone in the art. I was a tad bit taken back when he denounced the poets and wanted to remove them all from the city because artists allow the vices to flourish in the soul and that shouldn't be allowed in a good, lawful city. But, as I continued reading, and Plato allowed us back in with a condition, I felt a little bit annoyed, but only for a moment.
I do not deny that we are imitators in some respects, e.g. painting a portrait or sketching a landscape, but are we not creators? In some respect, can't we be on the level of the higher being sometimes, in Plato's respect, when we create something new and unseen? If we have created something never before thought of by anyone, we create the first and truthful 'couch', don't we raise ourselves up from being solely imitators or are we just degrading ourselves more by trying to imitate that higher being?
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