Band 7+: Describe your favourite work of art. You should say: -what the work of art is -when you first saw it -what it looks like and explain why you like this work of art.

So my favorite work of art would probably have to be the painting The School of Athens by Raphael. So the School of Athens painted by Raphael depicts the scenery of the School of Athens, which was a school of analytical philosophy that was founded by, I believe it was Plato in the city of Athens. Now, it is important to understand that this work was painted during the Italian Renaissance and it actually held quite a high profile location which was in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican City. Now, I first saw this work of art when I was reading a book called The Introduction of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell where he essentially discussed the painting itself and the scholars of philosophy was depicted in it. So if you looked at the painting, the first thing you notice is that it’s an amazingly large painting. And you also notice that the painting puts sort of a focus on two central figures. Now around those two central figures are dozens of Greek men and one Greek woman dressed in a variety of garb. Now these two men are Plato and Socrates. Plato is pointing upwards to signify his passion for the heavenly matters while Aristotle is pointing downwards to signify his connection with earthly pursuits. And the reason I find this work of art to be so incredibly evocative is because of its sort of implied depiction of these philosophers themselves. What I just explained is just one part of this amazingly huge painting in which you could probably go for hours talking about the sort of implied characteristics of each philosopher that is within this work of art.