The Platonic theory of Ideas was the basis on which Schopenhauer built his philosophy of art. But Plato's own theory of the function of art differed fundamentally {59} from that of Schopenhauer, and it is interesting to compare the two views. To Plato it seemed that art was concerned with the imitation of things as they seem, not as they really are; with the objects of sense perception and not with the Ideas. The artist mutates the illusory appearances of concrete things. Consequently the work of art is still further removed from true reality, from the Idea, than is the thing of experience. It is a copy of a copy. This led him to the statement that works of art are thrice removed from the truth. They can be produced easily without any knowledge of the truth, for they are concerned only with appearances, and not with the reality that lies behind appearances. Hence Plato's rejection of art. In his system it is not art, but philosophy that gives a direct revelation of truth. Schopenhauer, on the other hand, maintains that it is not the concrete object of experience, but the reality itself which lies behind that object, with which the artist is supremely concerned. The artist alone among men has the capacity of vision to see and grasp the truth of this reality. Such capacity of vision is reserved by Plato for philosophers, those whom he calls "lovers of the vision of truth." In his earlier works, Plato approximates far more closely to Schopenhauer's theory. He speaks there of the poet as "a light and winged and holy thing. There is no invention in him until he has been inspired.... Beautiful poems are not human or the work of man, but divine and the work of God. The poets are only the interpreters of the gods, by whom they are severally possessed." The value of art for Schopenhauer lies mainly in its power to deliver us from the slavery of the will. In the quiet contemplation of beauty revealed in art, we are {60} delivered from the misery of life. Willing, he maintains, arises from want, and therefore from suffering. The satisfaction of a wish ends it, but every satisfied wish at once makes room for a new one, and both are illusions. No attained object of desire can give lasting satisfaction, but merely a fleeting gratification. It is like the alms thrown to the beggar, that keeps him alive today, that his misery may be prolonged till the morrow.