Eye of Mind- Reading Reflection

The author here also delves into whether art is considered to be mimicry or not, similar to the teachings of Plato and the critique of Jane Allen Harrison. Merleau-Ponty, similar to Jane Allen Harrison, rejects the idea of art as mimicry and sees it more as a human-made diagram that helps us view and understand the world to the best of our ability. While art is based off of the world, it is from a limited human perspective. This lens means that any art we create is inevitably separated from nature due to our consciousness being unable to conceive the entirety of nature and the Earth. This limited, yet complete artistic view, as Merlau-Ponty puts it, turns into something slightly beyond mimicry. Merlau-Ponty also argues that art and the perspective of a painter are much more than the cold hard facts of traditional science. While I agree with this notion, I would like to suggest that a more factual representation of Earth, like data, can be combined with more expansive practices such as art and philosophy to attempt to widen our view of reality as much as we can. Disregarding either of these ways of thinking severely limits our information on our world and what it entails. 

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