Aristotle  

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Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate when reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the forms of the most ignoble animals and of dead bodies. --Aristotle via the Poetics.

Aristotle (Greek: Aristotélēs) (384 BCMarch 7, 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on diverse subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry (including theater), biology and zoology, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, and ethics. Along with Socrates and Plato, Aristotle was one of the most influential of the ancient Greek philosophers. They transformed Presocratic Greek philosophy into the foundations of Western philosophy as we know it. Some consider Plato and Aristotle to have founded two of the most important schools of Ancient philosophy; others consider Aristotelianism as a development and concretization of Plato's insights.

Aristotle defines philosophy as "the knowledge of being."

Lai d' Aristote

Aristotle, supposed tutor and counselor to Alexander the Great, fell for the scheme of the youthful monarch's paramour. One of the best loved medieval tales, the so-called "Lai d' Aristote," presented a scandalous image of the great philosopher. The story of Aristotle's fall remained popular for more than 500 years. --http://education.umn.edu/EdPA/iconics/aristotle/default.htm[Jul 2004]

Alexander the Great

Then [344 BCE], one or two years later, Aristotle was summoned to his native Stageira by King Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor of Alexander the Great, who was then 13.

The Power of Women

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The Housebook Master 


Middle Rhenish, active c. 1465/1500
Aristotle and Phyllis, c. 1485
drypoint
Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam


Part of a series known as the Power of Women, found in literature as well as other visual arts, this image recounts the late medieval legend that Aristotle tried to teach his protege Alexander about the dangers of love, only to fall prey to this humiliation himself. Consistent with both the courtly audience and the moralizing tone of prints by this multitalented, multimedia Rhenish artist.

Scholars were children of Jupiter, and Aristotle was one of the foremost scholars of antiquity. According to medieval legend he had urgently warned Alexander the Great to abstain from worldly pleasures, but this provoked Alexander's mistress Phyllis, who was determined to humiliate Aristotle and demonstrate the power of the flesh over the intellect. She accomplished this by seducing the great philosopher and then asking him to let her ride on his back. He consented, not realizing that Alexander had been invited to secretly witness this victory.

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