Diogenes Seeking an Honest Man

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

Diogenes the Cynic, a contemporary of Plato, is famous for having been an outspoken and contentious critic of convention. Believing that virtue was better revealed through action than theory, he maintained an ascetic lifestyle while deliberately acting out against what he found to be irrational societal customs. In this etching, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione showed Diogenes searching by lamplight, during the daytime, for a rational man. Instead of finding a man, the shoeless philosopher stumbles upon bones, vegetables, decaying bits of statues, and scavenging owls and monkeys.

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