The painters of Sicyon were rulers of a τέχνη in their artistic creation that allowed them to combine their natural talent for painting with a scientific method. The main objective of this book is to place Sicyon at the centre of an aesthetic conflict between Plato and Aristotle. The Sicyonian school of painting has always been identified as one of the main enemies of Plato for various reasons, in particular for the use of scientific disciplines that for Plato should be reserved for the study of philosophy or dialectics. By contrast, Aristotle shared many of the aesthetic ideals of the school of Sicyon: his love of nature as a teacher of art and the maximum value offered through drawing within the liberal arts education. This book demonstrates the importance of the Sicyonian school of painting in Antiquity. For the first time painting and drawing were taught in Sicyon as subjects worthy of being learned. In this cultural context of artistic and theoretical reflection, some of the greatest artists of the Greek world were fostered, such as Apelles, Lysippus, Pamphilus, and Pausias. Sicyonian works of art were admired, imitated, and even taken to Rome as paradigms of Greek art and as examples of how best to understand art and culture: attributes that were still in evidence at the time of the Renaissance.

García, Jorge Tomás