100th episode: appeal for help

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Would anyone like to help out by suggesting a special image (or images) to put on the top page in a couple of weeks, to celebrate the 100th episode of the podcast? We'll also put new images into the slideshow starting with episode 101, so suggestions for that also gratefully received.

David Tanner on 18 October 2012

How about one of the greatest

How about one of the greatest paintings of all time, Giorgione's _Three Philosophers_?

http://db.tt/WAK4qmGf

Peter Adamson on 18 October 2012

Yes, definitely! Actually I

Yes, definitely! Actually I saw this in person recently and the wall text said that there is dispute about whether they are actually philosophers, but I agree: we should put it in the slideshow. Thanks for suggesting it!

David Tanner on 18 October 2012

Did you see it in Vienna, at

Did you see it in Vienna, at the Kunsthistorisches Museum? I saw it last year at San Francisco's De Young museum, part of a travelling exhibit. One of my very favorite paintings. The link I sent you is the closest to the color I remember of all the images I could find on the web.

On an unrelated note: historically, have you noticed that for two of the greatest epochs in cultural history, a flowering in visual arts precedes one in philosophy by about a hundred years? I'm thinking of Phidias and Polykleitos in relation to Plato and Aristotle in Greece, and Leonardo, Michaelangelo and Raphael in relation to Descartes, Locke, and Hume. It's interesting that we don't even call the latter "Renaissance," but rather "Early Modern" philosophers. From when I was in grade school I assumed the Renaissance was first and foremost a rebirth of ancient ideas, which to me implied that philosophy would have been the beginning of it, but literature and the arts seem to have come first instead.

Peter Adamson on 18 October 2012

Yes, I was in Vienna for a

Yes, I was in Vienna for a conference and actually didn't realize it was at the Kunsthistorisches which I got to visit quickly, so when I rounded a corner there I was pleasantly surprised! I should have thought then of putting it on the site.

Your observation is an interesting one; I wonder whether it is more that we simply value these two cultural moments very highly in both artistic and intellectual terms? Perhaps it is generally going to be true that flowering of philosophy tends to happen alongside flowering in other arts (this is certainly true of, say, the 'Abbasid Islamic period, which is the one I know best). The same conditions will help both, i.e. high levels of wealth to provide patronage, high levels of education at least for an elite, etc.

By the way as we'll be seeing one reason Hume, Locke etc aren't "Renaissance" is because that title is given to figures of the earlier period like Pomponazzi, Ficino, etc. I'm not sure whether "Renaissance" is used consistently to demarcate a certain time period across different fields, though, like Art History and Philosophy.

Parrhesiastes on 23 October 2012

How about Democritus and

How about Democritus and Protagoras by Salvator Rosa; The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David; Heraclitus, the Weeping Philosopher, c. 1630 (artist unknown, usually attributed to 'spanish school'); Aristotle with a Bust of Homer by Rembrandt; Nietzsche by Edvard Munch.
Some modern paintings examples are Gadamer by Dora Mittenzwei; and, this is just for the sake of it, maybe for the 500th episode when it will reach structuralism, "Derrida queries DeMan" by Mark Tansey.

Peter Adamson on 23 October 2012

Thanks! These are great

Thanks! These are great suggestions. I'll see if I can find free-to-use images of these that are high enough resolution.

Lauren Ware on 25 October 2012

Peter- I've always loved

Peter- I've always loved Anselm Feuerbach's Das Gastmahl des Platon, which is a depiction of the scene in Plato's Symposium when the drunken Alcibiades bursts into the party. It's iconic!

And congratulations on 100 episodes...keep them coming!

Peter Adamson on 25 October 2012

Funny you should mention

Funny you should mention that, I was just admiring a book cover which has a part of that painting on it. Ok, we'll add this to the list!

Peter Adamson on 20 December 2012

Very nice! Thanks for the

Very nice! Thanks for the link, I will post this on the Facebook page. (For the home page slideshow it isn't horizontal enough.)

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