CREATION AND ARTIST

SANJIVA DEV

Creation is revelation; creation is construction; creation is expression. Creation is twofold: cosmic creation and artistic creation.

Light is cosmic creation, while delight is artistic creation. Life consists of both light and delight and hence life is a synthesis of the logic of light and the music of delight. To those who are credulous logic is unintelligible and to those who are insensitive music is inaudible. Logic’s rational approach and music’s aesthetic approach are complementary forces in life; these two forces are not of antithesis, but of synthesis, consisting of the twin-paths of science and art. Thus both the scientist and the artist are equally required for the enlightenment of the intellect, for the entertainment of the emotion, for the advancement of culture and for the refined unfoldment of the human spirit. Scientist’s attitude is critical whereas that of the artist is creative and thus the artist is a creator and his work a creation.

All humans are not artists but all artists are humans. In general, the artist does not remain an artist throughout the 24 hours; he becomes an artist only in the effulgent moments of creative candescence when the amorphous is transformed into form, silence, into sound and the static into the dynamic! At other moments they remain mere ordinary human beings. But even during these ordinary moments their observations and introspections are distinct from those of the ordinary men and women.

Geothe, the great German poet and dramatist, says, “Those organs which guide an animal are under man’s guidance and control.” Thus Goethe here has wisely distinguished the volitional faculties of man from those of the animal. And now we have to distinguish the artist from the man, the common man. Where the common man fails to comprehend beauty, the artist comprehends, and where the former fails to give a concrete form to the elusive beauty, the latter does, Aesthetic conception and material execution are the two main characteristics that distinguish the artist from the common man. Hence it is the process of creation that renders a man an artist.

Physics is empirical while metaphysics is transcendental. Art is both physical and metaphysical–physical in execution and metaphysical in conception. Hence art is empirical as well as transcendental. Art is both icon and idea–image and imagination. Icon is a manifestation revealed, while idea is a manifestation concealed.

Every phenomenon is a cosmic creation. But cosmic creation is quite different from the artistic creation. The creator of the cosmic creation is unknown, whereas the creator of the artistic creation is known, and this known creator is called the artist.

Creation of the sun, moon and stars, of clouds, rain and rainbow, hills and dales, of autumn dawn, vernal dusk and winter mists, of man, beast and bird is, no doubt, immensely enchanting, but the creation of line, colour, form, rhythm, tune, harmony, contrast, etc., by the artist is far more enchanting than that of the natural phenomena, for the artist transforms Nature into art. What Nature fails to do, art accomplishes, for Nature is ‘being’ while art is ‘becoming’. Nature is objective, while art is ‘ambijective’, which word I have coined, to indicate the blending of the subjective and the objective.

Artist does not create objects but he creates the forms of objects. The form of an object is more fascinating than the object itself. The form of a mountain looks more beautiful than the mountain itself. Object belongs to the pragmatic realm, while the form of the object does to the aesthetic realm. Everybody cannot separate the form from the object. The artist alone can accomplish this. The chair yields us comfort by allowing us to sit on it, whereas the curves of the form of the chair give us aesthetic delight, distinguishing itself from the utilitarian aspect of the chair. Object is reality, while its form is an appearance. But appearances are sometimes more real than the realities themselves. Shadow looks lovelier than the substance, despite the fact that the shadow is cast by the substance.

Form and colour are interdependent. Although colour and form are independent entities, they can never exist apart from each other. Colour cannot be perceived as colour, unless there exists a form and again it is the same with form too. No form in the visual world could be visible devoid of any colour. So, colour is formal and form is colourful.

Art is mainly twofold–visual and auditory. Painting, sculpture, architecture, etc., are visual arts and hence they are spatial arts because they belong to space. Form exists on space alone; all visual arts are formal arts and hence they are spatial arts. Auditory arts such as music, poetry, etc., are temporal arts because they belong to time. Vision and audition or form and sound represent space and time respectively. Spatial arts are concrete while temporal arts are abstract. Painting is concrete while music is abstract.

While painting, sculpture and architecture are visual arts and music and poetry are auditory arts, drama and dance are audio-visual arts. Drama and dance are to be seen with eyes as well be listened to with ears; they belong both to vision and audition alike; they are spatio-temporal arts. Histrionic and terpsichorean arts, however, belong to movement especially.

The simplest definition of art is ‘transformation of the impression into expression is art’. The artist receives his impressions either from the external world or from his internal world of imagination. In either case the artist transforms his abstract impressions into concrete expressions. The impression when turned into expression is called a work of art.

The process of the artist’s creative thinking contains four phases, according to Wallas: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. In the preparation period the artist receives his first impression through his sense-perceptions, awaiting expression. But gradually these newly-acquired impressions become part of the artist‘s unconscious and thus his conscious attention is diverted from those impressions. This stage is called incubation. Later, in due course, the unconscious-bound impressions will re-appear in a sudden flash of inspiration to the artist; this third stage is called illumination. Eventually the artist endeavours to judge critically what his mind has perceived–whether it is a truth or a hallucination; and this last phase is called verification. After having passed through these four phases of creative thinking the artist, at last, starts to create works of art in his chosen medium, method and mannerism. Here thought turns into action, impression into expression and idea into icon.

The artist has to undergo intensive contemplation before he commences creation. Unless there are practised such psychological endeavours no creation could take place; contemplation is ideological creation, while creation is technological contemplation. The finished work of art he intends to execute has to be visualised vividly before his mental eye, prior to create the same. This psychological precision would later yield perfection of dexterity to the finished work. Artistic creation is conspicuous by the presence of consummate dexterity. Rhythm is the lively dexterity of every work of art.

Colour is not painting; the rhythm of colour is painting. Form is not sculpture; the rhythm of form is sculpture. Sound is not music; the rhythm of sound is music. Movement is not dancing; the rhythm of movement is dancing. Thus rhythm is the life of art; not merely the life of art but also the art of life.

We said in the beginning that all men were not artists. But this statement is only true in one sense. Thus we have to state in another sense that all men are artists–not waking artists but sleeping artists. Every person is a dormant artist, distinct from the fact every artist is a waking artist. In every individual the artistic talents remain latent. The moment a latent talent ceases to be latent, its possessor turns to be a talented person. Every individual possesses aesthetic sensibility within him to some extent. He or she would react to form and sound but cannot create form and sound. That is why they are dormant or passive artists while those who can create are waking or active artists. In one sense, ‘to be’ ‘to become’. So, ‘to live’ is ‘to create.’

Here one should never forget that the artist alone is not the ideal human being on our terrestrial globe. There are scientists, heroes, scholars, saints, etc., in addition to the artists. Artist is first a man and then an artist. The artist should not deem to be above his fellow beings, the common men. In this context aptly says Odibon Redon, “The artist must not think that a divine right has placed him above the others. The sense of creation is something, but it is not everything. Some thoroughly mediocre man, or even one totally incapable of appreciating beauty, can show lofty and noble traits of conscience.” Odibon’s statement about the artists is apt in every sense.

Artist is one of the great persons in the society, but not the only great person. He sees beauty for himself and shows the same to his fellow beings through the creation of colours, forms, sounds, movement, etc. He represents one of the great trio, the True, the good and the Beautiful or the rational, ethical and the aesthetical. He is a veritable votary of the Cult of Beauty; he fights against ugliness–ugliness of the body, ugliness of thought and sentiment, etc. The artist, like the scientist, can both ameliorate and exterminate the society. He is great in his own place; but his place should not be the ivory tower.

As a veritable revealer of the concealed, artist is one of the finest flowers of the garden of humanity. He pours new life in the semi-dead; he injects fresh enthusiasm in the desolate and the desperate; he delights the depressed and he shows the path of vision and design to those that roam in the gloom. But the artist’s aesthetic vision in no mood should diminish his intellectual reason.

No one art is greater than the other. Every art has got its own merits and demerits. Painting has got its own chromatic charm. Sculpture has got its own plastic charm. Music has got its own melodious charm and dancing has got its own kinetic charm. Poetry too has got its own literary charm.

Painting is two-dimensional in space and hence its pictorial presentation is flat and thus it is not tactile. Painting does not contain elevations and depressions which are called depth. “Mahaayana Sutralankara” says, “Chitre natonnatam nasti cha; Drisyate tha cha.” There is no real relief in a painting, and yet we behold it in the same. The Western artist, through the technique of chiaroschro and perspective, has been able to create an optical illusion of three-dimensional relief on a two-dimensional flat surface. But the oriental painter has been content with his flat two-dimensional depiction of objects, persons and places on the two-dimensional surface. Formerly before the renaissance in Europe the entire European painting was done in two-dimensional flat technique as their oriental brethren did in the east. Byzantine painting has been one of the pre-renaissance flat paintings. The art of painting is purely visual.

Sculpture is tactile. We can touch it on every side. Elevations and depressions are felt by touch. It has got actual relief. Sculpture as three-dimensional in space. Sculpture is more permanent than painting. Sculpture is more virile than painting. Atmospheric effects could well be brought out in painting, while they could not be in sculpture. Figure study finds its finest medium in sculpture. North India has contributed the figure of Dhyani Buddha in stone to world sculpture, while South India gave the figure of Nataraja in bronze. The former is a static figure of serenity, solemnity and equipoise, while the latter is a dynamic figure of vagrance, expression and spontaneity. Thus the Dhyani Buddha and Nataraja symbolise the static and the dynamic aspects of life.

Music is the most abstract and the most sensitive of all the arts; it is also the most elusive of arts. Music and dancing are twin-arts. Music has its independent existence apart from dancing, while dancing cannot exist devoid of music. The art of poetry is more comprehensive than all the other arts. Pure music is made of sounds but general music is made of words which display meaning. Poetry is a phase of music in one sense. Music is more melodious than poetry and poetry is more semantic than music. It is said, formerly poetry was meant for singing; later it was for reading and now poetry is meant for thinking. But modern poetry is becoming non-semantic like pure music as well as abstract painting. Archbald Macleish writes, “A poem should be wordless as the flight of birds.”

All fine arts are inter-related. In order to be a master of one art one should have even a rudimentary knowledge of another art. This truth has been well illustrated in “Vishnudharmottara”, a treatise on painting. A student once approached a master sculptor and requested him to be initiated in the art of scu1pture. The sculptor asked the student whether he knew the art of painting but the student’s reply was in the negative. Then the sculptor advised him to go to a painter for learning the art of painting and said that unless one knew the art of painting one could never dream of becoming a sculptor. So, the student went to a master painter and requested him to accept him as his disciple, but the latter asked him whether he knew the art of dancing. But the student confessed his ignorance. The painter said that one should know the art of dancing in order to become a painter unless one knew the various gestures and gesticulations, poses and postures one could not be able to depict them in painting. So the student was advised to learn the art of dancing.

With this advice the student approached a master-dancer, who enquired the student whether he knew the art of music. Having received the negative reply from the student, the dancer told him that it would be impossible to become a dancer without having been a musician. So the student went to a musician and there asked him whether he was acquainted with the art of literature. In the ignorance of literature none could become a musician. At long last, the student proceeded to a litterateur who initiated him in the art of literature. After having learnt the art of literature, the student acquired knowledge in the arts of music, dancing, painting and sculpture and eventually he became a talented sculptor. It seems, therefore, that literature is the fundamental art devoid of whose knowledge no mastery could be established in other arts. Moreover, the aforesaid anecdote illustrates the signicance of the inter-relationship of all fine arts.

Despite the fact that poetry, music, dancing, architecture, etc., are called arts, the word “Artist” does in general, denote the painter and the sculptor only. When we say that a certain person is an artist, we mean that he is either a painter or a sculptor or both. The same truth does equally apply to the term “Art.” In general, art implies painting and sculpture. Those journals which are called art journals do chiefly contain contents pertaining to painting and sculpture. Similarly, art exhibitions are exclusively exhibitions of painting and sculpture and no music, dancing, poetry, etc., are to be found there.

So, the term “Art” significantly stands for painting and sculpture and similarly the term “Artist” for painter and sculptor. This implies that manual dexterity is significant in a work of art. Painting and sculpture receive greater manual dexterity than in other fine arts. Thus painting and sculpture have been able to receive the title of art.

From time immemorial the stream of irresistible creative urge self-expression has been incessantly flowing through humanity, this creative urge found expression through various media. The primitive cave-man was by no means less interested in the creation of art than the modern man. In those days of Stone Age, art was not for art’s sake; art was for magic’s sake. Those primitive artists of remote yore were unable to create realistic forms that represented the objects in the visual world. As their spoken language was free from the restrictions of past, present and future tenses, their art of painting too was free from the differences of perspective of the foreground, middleground and background. Variations of planes were unknown to them. Not only to them but even to the civilised painters of the orient, it was not known.

The primitive Negro sculptors of Africa delighted in creating wooden sculptures with simultaneous presentation of angles in the faces which in our own age have been able to impart inspiration to Pable Picassio. Simultaneous presentation of angles is a marvellous phenomenon in art. When we look at a profile, only one eye of the one side of the face would be visible and yet we know that there exists the second eye on the other side of the face. In simultaneous presentation two eyes are depicted on one side of the face in profile. This is the transcendence of space and time is art, which the primitive artists created unconsciously in the past and which the modern artists are creating consciously at present.

Form is of two aspects: perceptual form and conceptutal form. Perceptual form belongs to the visual world and hence it is a visual form while conceptual form belongs to the imaginary world and hence it is a mental form. In between these two forms exists a semi-visual and semi-mental form. These three forms fit themselves into three modes for the artist.

The visual form is representation, the semi-visual form is distortion and the mental form is abstraction. Representation is realism; distortion is idealism and abstraction is expressionism. Creation of any art consists of these three phases, generally. All art is born in realism, grows in idealism and culminates in expressionism. To make copy of the visual appearances is not deemed as good art; it is called imitation instead of creation. Imitation of the visual objects is re-creation and not creation. Imitation is repetition of the forms that already exist in the objective world. The imitative form is not a creative form. Art is creation; creation is not imitation and hence art is not imitation. Yet, art begins in imitation.

In realism the artist depicts what he sees in the external world. The external world is not a finished work of art; it contains many defects both in forms and colours; it lacks in rhythm balance and proportion. In such a case, if the artist prepares a replica of such an imperfect visual world, his work would be an imperfect one. His work would be a reflection of ‘what it appears be’ instead of ‘what it ought to be.’ Where imitation ends, creation begins. Imitation is the negation of positive construction. And yet the artist starts creation through imitation. Imitation belongs to realism.

There stands a hill with a vertical projection on the left shoulder and there stands a tree in the same direction where the vertical projection does exist. This appearance is unaesthetic in the sense of pictorial composition. The presence of both the tree and the vertical projection of the hill in the same direction upsets the balance in the landscape. But the realistic artist is compelled to depict the same view; he would not distort it in his depiction.

But the artist belonging to idealism tries to distort the view by shifting the tree from the direction of the hill’s vertical projection to the opposite direction in order to create the pictorial balance. In such pictorial creations the natural forms have to be distorted and thus the effects would emerge aesthetically exquisite.

Where realistic representation fails to achieve artistic effects, there idealistic distortion triumphs. Where both realism and idealism end, there begins expressionism which is abstract in appearance, free from identity with any form of the familiar object in the phenomenal world. No tree could be recognised as tree in this work of abstract art and no man as man. The forms of all objects would appear as geometrical patterns in such works. Especially in such works the artist gives form to his imagination rather than to the external objects. Of all the three ‘isms’ in art–realism, idealism and expressionism–the last is the hardest one to handle. But paradoxically enough, the last is the easiest one if the artist happened to be at ease with conception and execution alike.

Today we live in the nuclear age when everything in every walk of life proceeds towards the subtle from the gross, from the concrete towards the abstract and hence art too is bound to travel to those destinations where form is reduced to the formless.

Form is a huge visual deception–an optical illusion, a physical bondage and a veil hiding the absolute reality. Art begins in form and culminates in the formless. So, the artist in course of his creative evolution should transcend the form in order to have greater freedom in his or her luminous pilgrimage of self-expression. The artist ought to ascend from realism to idealism and from idealism to expressionism in order to create aesthetic delight.

It is not so much the theme as the technique that really matters in a work of art. How it is has greater significance in art than what it is. The theme might be a common one or an uncommon one, it matters little, but what matters really is whether the theme has been expressed in an exquisite technique.

There are three sorts of subject-matter in the world for the artist to depict things, places and persons. The depiction of things is called still-life, that of places is landscape and that of persons is figure-study. Still-life has found its fuller expression in the West, landscape in the Far East and figure-study in India.

Apart from the subject-matter it is the rendering of form that has been able to impart either merit or demerit to a work of art. The artist is less concerned with the didactic aspect of art than with its aesthetic aspect. In art creations, subject-matter is only a plea for creating plastic as well as chromatic enchantment. But, of course, it is different with the illustrative art in which the content is of primary importance and the form secondary. In these works it is the theme that really matters instead of technique for these works are done for illustrating the subject-matter. By pure works of art are not illustrations, they are aesthetic creation in form and colour like the melody of music.

The contemporary art, which is called modern art, has been a constant attempt to liberate itself from the shackles of subject matter. Forms and colours are not intended for depicting something other than themselves; they are to depict themselves. Art should not be a means to an end but it should be an end in itself. This is what is called ‘art for art’s sake’. No doubt, this viewpoint is also an extremity in the same way as that which represents that subject-matter alone is everything in a work of art. Like everything else art too is subject to change in tune with change in time and space.

In the art of painting the French impressionism and the German expressionism stand for two different schools of art creation. French impressionism belongs to depicting the outward appearances while German expressionism to the internal world of imagination; the former is concrete in manifestation, while the latter is abstract. French impressionism is a sheer visual delight that belongs to the charm of surface, whereas German expressionism is conceptual in appeal and thus it is more than mere surface deep. Both of these phases are equally required by man, for man is neither exclusively external nor exclusively internal; he is both external and internal. Man is neither a pure extrovert nor a pure introvert; man is ambivert.

Men live in the world of form, colour, sound, smell, taste and movement; but in every man lives his own world of infinite imagination and day-dreams. Some artists create in their works in which they live, whereas others create the worlds which live in them. Those works of art pertaining to the forms of the external world could be appreciated with ease by the common man, whereas those works pertaining to the internal world are beyond the appreciation of the common man.

The frescoes of Ajanta, the picture of “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci, The Sung landscapes of ancient China, etc., are not abstract paintings and yet they are masterpieces in line and colour. The works by modern painters such as Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Frank Kupka, etc., are abstract paintings and yet they are masterpieces! The sculptures of Mathura, Amaravati and South India as well as those by Michelangelo and Auguste Rodin are not abstract sculptures and yet they are masterpieces in stone and other materials. The works by modern sculptors such as Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Naum Gabo, etc., are abstract and yet they are masterpieces! There is good both in the old and the new. All that is old is not gold and it is the same with the new. Kalidasa says the same: “Puranamityeva nasadhu sarvam, nachapi kavyam navami thyavadvam.” Everything is not good simply because it is old and no poem is bad simply because it is new.

Man cannot live by form alone and at the same time he cannot live devoid of form. Cosmic creation consists of various forms and the artist is free either to utilise those cosmic forms in his art creations or to create new forms not identical with the cosmic forms. In either case what is required is the dexterity of execution and the profundity of conception.

At the moment of art creation man becomes an artist and the material transforms itself into a work of art; the empty canvas turns into a picture and the fragment of stone into a sculpture; the word into poem, the sound into music and the existence into life!

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