Abstract

Art appears to us historically. Hence, the historical meaning of art can best be understood by its clarification through a history of unconscious motives. This article applies to the classical arts and aesthetics (from Daedalos to Pygmalion) some theories ofRené Girard. Until the advent of the 'anthropométrie stage', art was solely concerned with the production of magic-ritual 'Objects' for the ritual, in which the experience oforiginal violence (Wieder-erlebung) took place. With the introduction of a religious structure, this original violence became hidden away behind an abstract means, thus disabling the direct contact between man and force of nature. For the arts, we can identify 'mimesis' as this means, which consequently became the central aesthetical ideal. Anthropometric art, then, was no longer directed towards the truth of original violence, buttowards the representational truth of the myth and the religious order. Since mimetic representations can never be what they represent, truth and beauty were disconnected in the arts. The ideal of mimetic beauty, as expressed in composition or design, allows for a potentially infinite number of variations, covering truth as well as fiction. It seems that classical arts still expressed the truth, albeit in an increasingly remote manner (since original violence was progressively more hidden away). We specifically discuss forementioned evolution in classical drama (comedy and tragedy) and in Plato's and Aristotle's aesthetics and theories of art