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SECTION EIGHT
Beauty and Art
BEAUTY
1 Beauty is the special divine Manifestation in the physical as Truth is in the mind. Love in the heart. Power in the vital. Supra-mental beauty is the highest divine beauty manifesting in Matter. 19.2.1934 2 Beauty is the way in which the physical expresses the Divine — but the principle and law of Beauty is something inward and spiritual and expresses itself through the form. 23.8.1933 SUPRAMENTAL ACTION AND BEAUTY
Yes—supermind action is direct, spontaneous and automatic like that of inframental Nature—the difference is that it is perfectly conscious. As there is no disagreement or strife within itself, it produces a perfect harmony and beauty. 19.9.1933 BEAUTY AND ANANDA 1 Beauty is Ananda taking form — but the form need not be a physical shape. One speaks of a beautiful thought, a beautiful act, a beautiful soul. What we speak of as beauty is Ananda in manifestation; beyond manifestation beauty loses itself in Ananda or, you may say, beauty and Ananda become indistinguishably one. 14.3.1933 Page - 491 2 Beauty is not the same as Delight, but like love it is an expression, a form of Ananda, created by Ananda and composed of Ananda; it conveys to the mind that delight of which it is made. Aesthetically the delight takes the appearance of Rasa and the enjoyment of this Rasa is the mind's and the vrtal's reaction to the perception of beauty. The spiritual realisation has a sight, a perception, a feeling which is not that of the mind and vital, it passes beyond the aesthetic limit, sees the universal beauty, sees behind the object what the eye cannot see, feels what the emotion of the heart cannot feel and passes beyond Rasa and Bhoga to pure Ananda, — a thing more deep, intense, rapturous than any mental or vital or any physical Rasa reaction can be. It sees the One everywhere, the original bliss of existence everywhere, and all these can create an inexpressible Ananda of beauty, the beauty of the One, the beauty of the Divine, the beauty of the Beloved, the beauty of the eternal Existence in things. It can see also the beauty of forms and objects, but with a seeing other than the mind's, other than that of a limited physical vision, — what was not beautiful to the eye becomes beautiful, what was beautiful to the eye wears now a greater, marvellous and ineffable beauty. The spiritual realisation can bring the vision and the rapture of the All-Beautiful everywhere. 26.10.1935 3 The word "expression" means only something that is manifested by the Ananda and of which Ananda is the essence. Love and Beauty are powers of Ananda as Light and Knowledge are of Consciousness. Force is inherent in Consciousness and may be called part of the Divine Essence. Ananda is always there even when Sachchidananda takes on an impersonal aspect or appears as the sole essential Existence; but Love needs a Lover and Beloved, Beauty needs a manifestation to show itself. So in the same way Consciousness is always there, but Knowledge needs a manifestation to be active, there must be a Knower and a Page - 492 Known. That is why the distinction is made between Ananda which is of the essence and Beauty which is a power of expression of Ananda in manifestation. These are of course philosophical distinctions necessary for the mind to think about the world and the Divine. 4.11.1935 4 That [the connection between Beauty, Rasa and Ananda] can hardly be realised except by experience of Ananda. Ananda is not ordinary mental or vital delight in things. Rasa is the mind's understanding of beauty and pleasure in it accompanied usually by the vital's enjoyment of it (Bhoga). Mental pleasure or vital enjoyment are not Ananda, but only derivations from the concealed universal Ananda of the Spirit in things. 7.11.1935
RIGHT CONSCIOUSNESS FOR ENJOYMENT OF BEAUTY 1 That is the right consciousness, not to desire or to be attached to the possession of anything for oneself, but to take the universal beauty etc. for a spiritual selfless Ananda. 6.11.1933 2 There is nothing harmful in the thing [aspiration for beauty] itself. On the contrary to awake to the universal beauty and refinement of the Mahalakshmi force is good. It is not an expression of greed or lust — only into these things a perversion can always come if one allows it, as into the Mahakali experience there may come rajasic anger and violence, so here there may come vital passion for possession and enjoyment. One must look at the beauty as the artist does without desire of possession or vital enjoyment of the lower kind. 8.10.1933 Page - 493 The enjoyment you speak of is vital-physical, while beauty has to be enjoyed with the aesthetic sense — either human or divinised. 6.4.1933 EXPERIENCE OF BEAUTY
All things are creations of the Universal Consciousness, Beauty also. The "experience" of the individual is his response or his awakening to the beauty which the Universal Consciousness has placed in things; that beauty is not created by the individual consciousness. The philosophy of these lines1 is not at all clear. It says that the experience of beauty is a living truth added to beauty, a truth of which beauty is unaware. But if beauty is only the experience itself, then the experience constitutes beauty, it does not add anything to beauty; for such addition would only be possible if beauty already existed in itself apart from the experience. What is meant by saying that beauty is unaware of the experience which creates it? The passage makes sense only if we suppose it to mean that beauty is a reality already existing apart from the experience but unconscious of itself, and the consciousness of experience is therefore a living truth added to the unconscious reality, something which brings into it consciousness and life. 6.1.1937 TWO KINDS OF BEAUTY
There are two kinds of beauty. There is that universal beauty 1 Beauty is not an attitude of sense Nor an inherent something everywhere, But keen reality of experience Of which even beauty is all unaware, Adding to it a living truth; intense And ever living, that were else, not there. Page - 494 which is seen by the inner eye, heard by the inner ear, etc. — but the individual consciousness responds to some forms, not to others, according to its own mental, vital and physical reactions. There is also the aesthetic beauty which depends on a particular standard of harmony, but different race or individual consciousnesses form different standards of aesthetic harmony. 18.10.1935 UNIVERSAL BEAUTY AND ANANDA 1 There is a certain consciousness in which all things become full of beauty and Ananda, — even what is painful and ugly becomes an outward play, and becomes suffused with the beauty and Ananda behind. It is specially the Overmind consciousness of things — although it can be felt from time to time on the other planes also. A great equality and the view of the Divine everywhere is necessary for this to come fully. 10.3.1934 2 As you say, there is a truth behind Tagore's statement. There is such a thing as a universal Ananda and a universal beauty and the vision of it comes from an intensity of sight which sees what is hidden and more than the form — it is a sort of viśvarasa such as the Universal Spirit may have had in creating things. To this intensity of sight a thing that is ugly becomes beautiful by its fitness for expressing the significance, the Guna, the Rasa which it was meant to embody. But I doubt how far one can make an aesthetic canon upon this foundation. It is so far true that an artist can out of a thing that is ugly, repellent, distorted create a form of aesthetic power, intensity, revelatory force. The murder of Duncan is certainly not an act of beauty, but Shakespeare can use it to make a great artistic masterpiece. But we cannot go so far as to say that the intensity of an ugly Page - 495 thing makes it beautiful. It is the principle of a certain kind of modern caricature to make a face intensely ugly so as to bring out some side of the character more intensely by a hideous exaggeration of lines. In doing that it may be successful, but the intensity of the ugliness it creates does not make the caricature a thing of beauty; it serves its purpose, that is all. So too ugliness in painting must remain ugly, even if it gets out of itself a sense of vital force or expressiveness which makes it preferable in the eyes of some to real beauty. All that hits you in the midriff violently and gives you a sense of intense living is not necessarily a work of art or a thing of beauty. I am answering of course on the lines of your letter. I do not know what Tagore had precisely in view in thus defining beauty. 3.11.1936 SOURCES OF BEAUTY IN THE BODY 1 It is something vital in some cases, something psychic in others that gives a beauty which appears in the body that is not beauty of shape, colour or texture. 18.10.1935 2 If it is vital in its origin, it need not come from beauty of mind or character; it is something in the life-force which may go with a good character, but also with a bad one. 18.10.1935 MODESTY AND PHYSICAL BEAUTY
Modesty is not part of physical beauty, that is a mental-vital element. As for physical beauty different races have different conceptions. Indians and Europeans like curves, Chinese detest them in a woman. 18.10.1935 Page - 496 PORTRAIT PAINTING 1 The failure to bring out the personality is not at all due to any defect in the technique. With any technique the personality can be brought out. But to get it one must come out from one's own personality, one's ego with its characteristic and limited look on things, and identify oneself with the person of the sitter, — that is how one seizes it and can naturally bring it out in the painting. 14.12.1936 2
For that [bringing out the personality of the sitter] each one must find his own technique. Only for you what you must find is a way to express the psychic instead of the vital. At present it is the vital you bring out. The psychic is the eternal character, the vital brings out only transient movements. 15.7.1935 ART AND NATURE 1 Art cannot give what Nature gives; it gives something more. 20.6.1934 2 A painter can certainly bring home the aspects of the sea and the beauty of Nature, but he does it as an artist, in the way of Art. He does it by representation and suggestion, not by mere reproduction of the subject. The question of Art or Nature being more beautiful therefore does not arise. 16.3.1936 Page - 497 There is no incompatibility between the inspiration from within and the dependence on Nature. The essence of the inspiration always comes from within but the forms of expression are based on Nature though developed and modified by the selective or interpretative sight of the artist. 6.9.1933 A GOOD RULE FOR APPRECIATION
It is usually a good rule for other inward things beside the appreciation of the beauty of Nature — to keep it for oneself or else to share it only with those who have the same sense or the same experience. 15.3.1934 TO A YOUNG ARTIST
That is a great error of the human vital — to want compliments for their own sake and to be depressed by their absence and imagine that it means there is no capacity. In this world one starts with ignorance and imperfection in whatever one does — one has to find out one's mistakes and to learn, one has to commit errors and find out by correcting them the right way to do things. Nobody in the world has ever escaped from this law. So what one has to expect from others is not compliments all the time, but praise of what is right or well done and criticism of errors and mistakes. The more one can bear criticism and see one's mistakes, the more likely one is to arrive at the fullness of one's capacity. Especially when one is very young — before the age of maturity — one cannot easily do perfect work. What is called the juvenile work of poets and painters — work done in their early years — is always imperfect, it is a promise and has qualities but the real perfection and full use of their powers comes afterwards. They themselves know that very well, but they go Page - 498 on writing or painting because they know also that by doing so they will develop their powers. As for comparison with others, one ought not to do that. Each one has his own lesson to learn, his own work to do and he must concern himself with that, not with the superior or inferior progress of others in comparison with himself. If he is behind today, he can be in full capacity hereafter and it is for that future perfection of his powers that he must labour. You are young and have everything yet to learn — your capacities are yet only in bud, you must wait and work for them to be in full bloom — and you must not mind if it takes months and years even to arrive at something satisfying and perfect. It will come in its proper time, and the work you do now is always a step towards it. But learn to welcome criticism and the pointing out of imperfections — the more you do so, the more rapidly you will advance. 1933 Page - 499 |