An Investigation on the Role of Art According to A Philosophical and Religious Approach

In this article I investigate the concept of art based on a philosophical and religious approach through focusing on the leading ancient Greek philosophers' views, which have had great influence on later theories on art, and Muslim philosophers' thoughts. Applying a descriptive analytic study I seek to reveal the crossway of the two paths of religious and philosophical thoughts on art. As most of the theories on art are in agreement with the issues about ethics and training, the issues related to religious thoughts, the faithful have applied art for their purposes. Thus, first I study the scholars' theories on the nature of art, its position and the reasons people appeals to it. Then I review the role of art in Islam and how it finds expression in Islamic culture. Muslim artists have great attitudes toward spiritual views and consider art as the manifestation of Devine Beauty. Such attitude leads to transcend the Islamic art. Finally I come to the conclusion that both philosophy and religion are in agreement about the significant role of art in actualizing human's potentiality and spirituality. They also have similar concerns about the disadvantages of art on training and ethics.