asked to draw along with Robert is in Platos explanation of human weakness and its remedy. Plato references the power of illusion in the appearance of an object. Objects, he says, appear straight when looked at out of the water, and crooked when in the water; and the concave becomes convex, owing to the illusion about colours to which the sight is liable. Roberts description, to the blind man, was like seeing the cathedral under water - blurry and confusing. Plato goes on to say that this weakness is helped by the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing. The blind man could take Roberts description as truth or he could use the fore mentioned scientific arts, measuring the lengths of Roberts lines, to approach a true image. This remedy allowed the blind man to see the cathedral in its true form, away from the deception of light-bending water.Longinuss On the Sublime is another source in explaining Robert and the blind mans actions. In Book XIV, Longinus says that when creating something great, one should imagine within ourselves how, if need were, Homer would have said this same thing, how Plato or Demosthenes, or, in history, Thucydides would have made it sublime. In Cathedral, the blind man wants Robert to recall the greatness of those geniuses who created such a masterpiece in order to draw his picture. It took an inspiration, something that Plato thought could be foolishly mistaken as reality, to create a cathedral that could be interpreted by the blind man. The blind man knows that Roberts picture of the cathedral will, no doubt, be shadowed in comparison to the cathedrals on late-night television. But, as Longinus goes on to say in Book XXI, the sublime is amazing and its greatness often recognized only when one tries to achieve it, and fails. The blind man wanted Robert to realize the splendor of the cathedrals because he had just one minute before, said that cathedrals meant nothing to him, thus showing his igno...
