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SECTION
EIGHT
ART AND LITERATURE
Art
ALL
Art is interpretation. Creation is a
misnomer; nothing in this world is created, all is manifested. All
exists previously in the mind of the Knower. Art may interpret
that which is already manifest or was manifest at one time, or it
may interpret what will be manifest hereafter. It may even be
used as one of the agencies in the manifestation. A particular
type of face and figure may be manifested in the work of a popular artist and in a single generation the existing type of face and
figure in the country may change and mould itself to the new conception. These things are there in the type in the causal world
with which our superconscious selves are perpetually in touch;
they manifest in the psychical and become part of our thought.
That thought we put out into the material world and there it
takes shape and body as movements, as institutions, as poetry,
Art and knowledge, as living men and women. Man creates his
world because he is the psychic instrument through whom God
manifests that which He had previously arranged in Himself.
In this sense Art can create the past, the present and the future.
It can re-manifest that which was and has passed away, it can fix
for us that which is, it can prophesy that which will be.
*
Its normal sphere, however, is interpretation of a less pregnant and forceful kind. Here too, there are three things which it
can interpret in the object it selects, the causal part or thing in
itself, the psychical part, or its passing imaginations, phases, emotions; or the physical part, the outward appearance, incident or
movement as our eyes see them. Indian Art attaches itself to the
two higher interpretations, European to the two lower. They
meet in the middle term of Art, the imaginative and emotional;
but each brings with it the habits of vision, the conventions, the
mastering movement and tendency of the soul downward to earth
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or upward to heaven, born of their main preoccupation so that
even here, though they meet on common ground, they remain
diverse and unreconciled.
*
In dealing with the form the question between them is: shall
I reproduce what the eye sees or shall I reproduce what the soul sees? The lower
type of European Art is content with reproducing what the eye sees. This it calls realism and fidelity to
Nature — narrowing Nature to the limited confines of the
materially sensible. The reproduction, of course, is not a real
reproduction but only an approximation within the limitations
imposed by the canvas, the brush and the paint box. It is really as close an
imitation as our instruments will allow, absolute fidelity being rarely possible. This style of Art had perhaps its utility,
but now that we have photographs and can put colour into the
photographs, its separate field is in danger of being taken from
it.
*
A higher European Art takes imitation of the form as its
basis, but its nobler objective is not the imitation of form, but the
imitation of emotion. The artist tries to see and recover on canvas not only the body, but so much of the feeling as the body
can for the moment express. This may often be a great deal. In
certain moments of powerful feeling or critical action a great deal
of our psychical selves may come out in the eyes, the face, the
gesture, the pose. This the artist imitates. He not only shows us
an object or an incident, but he fixes on the canvas a moment in
the soul-life of the object. The habitual mood also stamps itself
to a great extent on the face and certain traits of character betray
themselves in expression and feature. These too the imitative
artist transfers to the canvas. When not exaggerated or theatrical, this kind of art can be strong, effective and dramatic. But
it has serious limitations. So much of the inner truth as the
outward form interprets, this Art interprets. Its interpretation
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is second-hand, its vision derived and unable to go beyond its
authority.
*
A still higher reach is attained by imaginative European Art.
Imagination, according to the European idea, is creative, not
interpretative. What is really meant is that the imaginative artist
transfers something that belongs to himself into the object of
his study, some fancy that has flashed across or some idea that
has mastered his mind. Either he reads it into his subject by unconscious transference or he deliberately uses his subject as a
mere excuse for putting his fancy or his idea into line and colour.
The artist is interpreting himself, not his subject. This egoistic
Art has often a very high value and some of the best European
work has been done in this kind. More rarely his imaginative
sympathy enables him to catch a glimpse of the thing itself
hidden in the form. His imagination usually plays with it and
prevents the vision from being true in all its parts, but he is able
to do work of the highest attractiveness, vigour or artistic beauty.
*
In all these kinds the European binds himself by the necessity of reproducing the actual outward form imposed by material
Nature. He is a bondsman to form and such do not attain to
that spiritual freedom which is the first condition of the sight spiritual. When he tries to interpret the thing in itself, he degenerates usually into allegory. Recently the Impressionist School in
Europe have tried to break the fetters of the form; they have
insisted that what one really sees in an object is not the rounded,
solid material form but something rarer and different. In reality,
they are groping their way towards an attempt at seeing and
interpreting something hidden in the object, something the soul
sees before the eye can catch it. Ignorant of the way, they seldom
rise beyond a striking and fantastic imagination, but sometimes
an inspired eye catches the true vision.
*
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The Indian begins at the other end. He sees the thing itself
either by sūksma-drsti, the soul-sight, or by dhyāna, a spiritual
union with the object studied in which the truth it expresses dawns on the mind
by the process of revelation. This he transfers to canvas by letting his inspired and informed Will guide the
pencil and the brush instead of using his intellect or merely technical means to find the best way of expression. He uses technique
with power, but does not rely on it chiefly. The body he paints
is the one which will in every part of it express the thing itself,
not the actual material body which largely conceals it. When he
descends into the psychical part and seeks to express imaginations, emotions, or passing phases, he carries his method with
him. Not content with expressing as much of the feeling as the
actual body reveals, he sees the emotion in its fullness by dhyāna
or soul-sight and forces the body into a mould fit for its absolute
expression. He sees the soul and paints it or he sees the heart or
mind and paints it. He sees and, can, if he will, paint the body
merely. But usually he does not will it.
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