"Never did an eye see the sun unless it had first become like the sun, and never could a soul have a vision of Beauty unless it is itself beatiful"

Plotinus

"... the wisdom of the gods and the blessed does not express itself through propositions, but through beautiful images"

Plotinus goes on to say that "this is what the egyptians had understood, writing not with letters forming sounds and sentences, but with signs of which each is a science, a wisdom, a real thing grasped at once, and not a reasoning or deliberation"

for the greco-romans (as for all european languages which don't operate via ideogramm) this 'science' are the arts.

"depth (bathos) is matter, and that is why matter is dark [...]", says Plotinus. The ultimate fullfilment of a 'plotinian aesthetic' (which has its roots in the ancient mystery cults) was not to be achieved by hellenistic art, but by that of early medieval / byzantine Christendom

the end of this aesthetic (no depth / shadows, flat plane, reverse perspective etc.) is inaugurated by Giotto, who introduces chiaroscuro and the first traces of 'subjective' perspective (as opposed to the 'objective' POV of the byzantines) https://twitter.com/anteruina/status/1288439370513551360