The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and ...

painting, sketching, and sculpture. The comment that this particular zw|~on could
represent a human being complements previous evidence that zw|~on in Plato referred to
animate subjects of representation in works of art; whereas its different versions here
confirm that it need not be the product of a specific artistic process.
The question that the Athenian next poses to Kleinias indicates that the parts,
colors, and shapes of the original were, as noted above, parts of the representation too.
What we learn here is that they were aspects on the basis of which a specific quality of a
work of art was judged: its beauty. “What if we were to know, [the Athenian asks,] that
all his own [a human being’s] parts, colors, and shapes have been captured by the art?
“Does it follow necessarily that whoever knows about these things also readily knows
whether the work is beautiful or just where it is deficient in beauty?” Kleinias’ response
that more or less all people are competent in judging the subject a work of art, in
particular, how correctly it is represented recalls the already seen connection between
accurate representation and lifelikeness as an artistic criterion for all audiences in
Classical Greece, regardless of their degree of sophistication. His response further
suggests, however, that knowledge of the excellence with which the work was executed
was a specialized criterion that only technical experts and connoisseurs possessed. It is
implied, therefore, that average spectators are excluded from this category because
otherwise, as Kleinias asserts: “that would mean, stranger, that all of us, so to speak,
know what is beautiful in any zw|&wn.” Once again, the appearance of zw|&wn, which is
here in the genitive plural form, is not described; therefore, its use in a very general sense
is once again confirmed. Bury suggests that these zw|&wn should be understood as
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