The Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw – the largest art university in Poland – is preparing an interdisciplinary research project in art and philosophy entitled: “Artistic research on Plato’s allegory of cave: painting, graphics, sculpture, installation, photography, film” – under the direction of Prof. Dr. Artur Krajewski and Dr. Jarosław M. Spychała.

There is another oil painting of Plato’s cave that has survived to the present day, namely La Grotte de Platon, which was probably painted in the 16th century. The authorship of the painting is attributed to Michiel Coxcie (the painting is now in France, in the collection of the Musée de la Chartreuse in Douai).

At the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries – in all probability – there were barely three works dedicated to Plato’s cave. The Dutch poet Hendrik Laurens Spieghel wrote a poem in which he drew on Plato’s cave motif (Hert Spieghel, III 70-154). In 1598, commissioned by Spieghel, the Dutch painter Cornelis Corneliszoon van…