I. V. Chalapathi Rao

Ancient India which was for a long time the Cradle of Civilisation and Culture was also a Centre of Arts which included dance, music, drama, poetry, painting, sculpture and architecture. As Swamy Vivekananda said, “Here activity prevailed when even Greece did not exist, when Rome was not thought of, when the very fore fathers of the modern Europeans lived in jungles and painted themselves blue, even earlier when history had no record”. The distinctive feature of Indian art is, its sponsors, exponents and practitioners were motivated by spiritual thought and they entertained a firm belief that art in its noblest form should be directed towards worship of God. It is essentially an activity aimed at the production of the triple goals - Satyam (the truth), Sivam (the good) and Sundaram (the beautiful).

Whatever its form, Art is held to be the culture of the feelings, not their rank growth nor their forced bloom but their education and growth to fullness and perfection, to harmonious life and rhythm. It is concerned not with the passing shows and shams of life but the supremacy of spiritual values. Art in its purest and sublime form transcends the body which is “the Instrument of life” (a phrase coined by Sal Bellow in ‘Herzog’) and passes through the cultural values of life to plumb the inner depths of the soul. Like the quality of mercy it is a two-fold blessing. It blesses the one who produces and the one who receives.

According to the belief of our ancestors, the whole world is a stage and the creator is the Director (Jagannataka Sutradhari). The true object of Indian art - be it drama, dance, music or painting, is to establish rapport between the creator and the creation. The characteristic genius of Indian art has been to reach the core of human existence by blending realism and idealism and emphasising the eternal values in a changing. The river remains constant although the water changes. Bharata calls an actor a scholar and a genius who endeavours to lead the audience to a profound realisation of the ultimate goal of life. Shakespeare makes Jaques in his play As you like it compare the seven ages of a man to a Seven Act drama unfolding the successive scenes from infancy to old age. Bharata said: Loka Vrittyanukaranam Naatyam (Drama is imitation of life). Nicoll too defines drama as “Imitation of Nature and Life”. Cicero defines drama as “Copy of life, mirror of custom and reflection of truth”. Coleridge says, “Art is not a mere copy but an imitation”. Aristotle says, “Art appeals to pleasure”. Plato qualifies it by adding: “Art ought to aim at pleasure but intellectual pleasure, not mere emotional pleasure”. Art imitates things, as they ought to be - idealised reflection of the original. Jagannadha, the Sanskrit scholar, says in Rasagangadhara its Ramaneeyata (beauty) is that which generates in the mind transcendental joy”. Abhinava Gupta considers the experience of rasa similar to the experience of the Brahman. Rasa is a technical term for a mental condition.

The same thing is said by Dryden, “Drama is a just and lively representation of life”. It is not an imitation like a Xerox copy. It is a visionary projection in the Aristotelian and Platonist sense. In fact even a photographer waits for a few minutes to catch the supreme moment, which reveals the best aspect of the man. Referring to that special sense which all artists should cultivate, Harsh, the world-famous photographer, says, “It registers in a fraction of a second the inward power of greatness. There is a brief moment when all that is in a man’s mind and soul is reflected through his eyes, his hands and his attitude. This is the moment to record”.

Art becomes powerful when imitation is reinforced by imagination as in Ravi Varma’s mythological portraits, Michael Angelo’s paintings in St. Peter’s Church, and the frescoes and sculptures of Ajanta and Ellora. All great art and all great science, as Bertrand Russell says, “ spring from the passionate desire to embody what was at first unsubstantial phantom, a beckoning beauty luring men away from safety and ease to a glorious torment. The man in whom this passion exists must not be fettered by the shackles of a utilitarian philosophy. To the ardour of such men, we owe all that makes men great-pursuit of vision”. When total identification with art becomes a religious obsession, the artist becomes self-giving rather than self-seeking. T.S. Eliot confirms it: “The progress of a true artist is continuous self-sacrifice and a continual extinction of personality”.

Economy is the essence of art. Restraint rather than exuberance characterises superior art. A.G. Gardiner wrote in his essay that Schiller burnt a whole city to produce the effect of horror whereas Shakespeare made Desdemona drop a handkerchief to create a truly tragical effect in Othello. Thus, art is suggestive rather than exhaustive. Excessive communication is counter-productive.

T.S. Eliot says in Sacred Wood, “We aim in the end to terminate our enjoyment of the arts in a philosophy and that of philosophy in religion”. In this sense, art claims kinship with true religion, which is free from ritualistic claptrap. Religion cannot be divorced from morality. I.A. Richards, another literary critic, says, “Art deals with morality. It must be judged with standards of morality - but morality interpreted not in terms of eternity but in terms of psychology”. He adds, “Man is full of impulses and what is good or bad which satisfies the greatest number of impulses”. He wants us to judge aesthetic experience like Bentham judging happiness. Richards is doubtless a great critic but he appears to lose sight of the quality of the impulses in making this particular statement.

The question often debated is: Should art be didactic or autotelic (having end or aim in itself)? Tolstoy and Bernard Shaw express more or less the same view. They say that Art must point a moral or convey a message. It can be indirect. It need not be outright propaganda. “The slogan Art for Art’s sake is as contemptible as eating for the sake of eating or sex for the sake of mere lust. Art must be didactic or it is no more art than chocolates are food or lust is love”. In The Sanity of Art Bernard Shaw states succinctly what he regards as the functions of art: “Art must cultivate and refine our senses until their operations become highly critical acts which protest against ugliness, noise, discordant speech, corruption or anything inimical to good taste and cultured life”. Bovee, the literary critic says, “Bad taste is a species of bad morals”. According to Kalidasa, “Beauty (in art) transfers its quality even to objects which are considered generally to be ugly”. Ugly things resolve themselves into beauty. For example, one of the masterpieces of Rembrandt’s paintings is the Meat Shop with its blood-stained meat and the flies. As Ananda Vardhana says, “Familiar things and expressions become beautiful when rasa is added”.

Art is the very antithesis of ugliness and selfishness. It is counter to all trivialising influences. John Ruskin wept publicly for the destruction of a Gothic Cathedral or a Venetian palace or a Swiss lake or an English river filled with old shoes, obscene crockery and ashes”. His artistic heart could not tolerate the sight of any place of beauty defiled by ugliness or vandalism. Can we imagine dirty surroundings marring the loveliness of Tajmahal, Ajanta frescoes, Venus of Milo or Hermes of Proxiteles? But, mere beauty without a moral impulse can only be dubbed as second rate. Otherwise as Plato said, “The influence of Art can be as dangerous as the influence of Helen among the youngsters of Troy” – the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium.

Art should produce noble impulses. Hallingworth says, “A higher organisation of feeling is of more value to our whole system than a feeling that is crude and easily aroused”. Longinus too is of the same view. He says, “The purpose of Art is not merely the production of pleasure but that of transport too” By ‘transport’, he means that the reader or listener or spectator should be enraptured and carried away with delight. Sublimity comes like a flash of lightning in a phrase, a line, a passage or even silence. Such a feeling comes when we read a play like Kalidasa’s Sakuntalam, Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ or when we listen to soul-stirring music of Thyagaraja or Saigal when we see a masterpiece of Ravi Varma or Rembrandt or Rubens or any other great artist.

What presses the signet of eternity upon many a fleeting moment and imparts divinity to an experience in art is its universality. It is universality that puts the stamp of permanence on the temporary and the topical. It is this element of timelessness that distinguishes the classics and the epics from the mundane and matter-of-fact literature. Versification is not poetry. Speaking of the art of drama, the well-known critic Nicoll says, “Universality is representation of feelings and incidents with such truth of human nature that the spectator is able to identify himself with action”. It is the sense of feeling oneness with the situation or the character. If it is a stage drama, the artist has a notable contribution to make. When the actor and the character click and appear to be made for each other, Burbage or Sir Lawrence Olivier becomes Hamlet, Elizabeth Taylor becomes Cleopatra, Richard Burton becomes Antony, Prithviraj becomes Alexander or Akbar, Saigal becomes Tansen and Nagaiah becomes Pothana. The successful actor ‘incarnates’ and not merely ‘impersonates’.

Art lies in the concealment of art, which means the effort is not visible. As Tennyson said, “The simplest things are hardest to be done”. From outside it looks easy and effortless. Alexander Pope defined poetry as “What is oft thought but never so well expressed”. Plan, preparation and inspiration are not observable. The product appears attractive, but the art remains hidden from view like Shelley’s Skylark - “High-born like a king in the palace of skies, unburdening his soul like a rose in the foliage or poet hidden in the light of thought”.

Time and circumstance condition the art. Shakespeare would perhaps have written differently had he not belonged to the Elizabethan Age, which saw the efflorescence of creative art. 18th Century was the age of Prose and Criticism. There may be exceptions. Telugu poetry would not have flourished in the Age of Prabhandhas, had it not enjoyed the royal patronage of Sri Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagar Empire. Time is also an infallible judge. A few works of art only pass the muster while the lesser ones will be relegated to the limbo of oblivion. Many present themselves before Time but only a few are chosen. As Thomas Browne said, “The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been found in the Register of God not even in the record of man”. Good art as Stanley and Glassey say: “bears within it the power to persist – some mysterious seed of immortality. It would almost seem as though there is a kind of language within language, the power of appealing to and being understood by men of many generations and races”.

There is a uniqueness and a distinctive quality in the product of an artist based upon his personality pattern. The product and the artist’s personality/philosophy are interconnected. As St. Beuve pointed out, knowledge of the artist’s personality and his value system are preconditions for a proper assessment of the product. Every piece of art bears the insignia and signature of the artist himself. I agree with Oscar Wilde who said: “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed on the coloured canvas”. This is true, though somewhat exaggerated. This applies to every form of art.

The golden rule is, there are no golden rules. There is no manual of rules to bind art. There is no facile theory of universal appeal and all-time applicability to regulate the production of art. Just as poetry is organized violation of the rules of grammar, art is free. Aristotle’s ‘poetics’ would have been different if he had models of Greek plays other than Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes et al., before him. Rules are derived from the performance of great masters. Chinnaya Suri’s book on grammar is perhaps based on a limited number of models before it. Everybody knows that Cunliffe’s Shakespearean Dictionary and Abbot’s Shakespeare’s Grammar were specially written for the benefit of the reader of Shakespeare. Peerless Kalidasa and priceless Shakespeare are the free gifts of Nature. Their noblest worth is not there by plan or precontrivance. As Alexander Pope said, “Shakespeare was a law unto himself” so also was Kalidasa. This applies to all great artists. We cannot fetter their hands and stem the flow of inspiration. Therefore, Horace said, “With what knot shall I bind him who so often changes his countenance?”

Finally, the view that Truth, Goodness and Beauty relate to existence and transcendental joy and that the three belong to the different aspects of the divine is the quintessence of the Indian art. The Supreme is regarded as Satchitananda. The Gita says, “Whatever is glorious, good, beautiful and mighty is a fragment of My splendour”. Keats thinks ‘Beauty is truth, Truth beauty’. Emerson says, ‘Beauty in its largest and profoundest sense is an expression of the universe’. Whitehead says in ‘Adventure of Ideas’: “In the absence of truth, beauty is on a lower level and in the absence of beauty, truth sinks into triviality”.

Tennyson declares in ‘The Palace of Art’:

“That Beauty, Goodness and Knowledge are three sisters

that dote upon each other - friends to man

Living together under the same roof

And never can be sundered without tears”.

Surprisingly there seems to be a large measure of similarity almost amounting to unanimity between the scholars and critics of Art and Literature in their views. East and West seem to be on the same wave-length on many things.

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