God alone is truly beautiful, and all other beauty is by participation: it is only a work of art that has been created after an eternal model, that can be called beautiful.

An imitation of the divine principles is only possible if we have known them “as they are,” for if we have not ourselves seen them, our mimetic iconography, based upon opinion, will be at fault; we cannot know the reflection of anything unless we know itself. It is the basis of Plato’s criticism of naturalistic poets and painters that they know nothing of the reality but only the appearances of things, for which their vision is overkeen; their imitations are not of the divine originals, but are only copies of copies.

 

And seeing that God alone is truly beautiful, and all other beauty is by participation, it is only a work of art that has been wrought, in its kind (idea) and its significance (dunamis), after an eternal model, that can be called beautiful.

 

And since the eternal and intelligible models are supersensual and invisible, it is evidently “not by observation” but in contemplation that they must be known.

 

Two acts, then, one of contemplation and one of operation, are necessary to the production of any work of art.

 

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Ananda K. Coomaraswamy: A Figure of Speech or a Figure of Thought?

Done