{"id":1186,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:08","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1186"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:08","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:08","slug":"16-the-suprarational-beauty-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15\/16-the-suprarational-beauty-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-16_The Suprarational Beauty.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n<div class=\"Section1\">\n<p style='margin:0;line-height:150%' align=\"center\"><span><b><br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">CHAPTER <\/font><\/b><font size=\"3\"><br \/>\nXIV<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style='margin:0;line-height:150%' align=\"center\"><b><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"4\">The <\/font> <span><br \/>\n<font size=\"4\">Suprarational Beauty<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p style='margin:0;line-height:150%' align=\"justify\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style='margin:0;line-height:150%' align=\"justify\">\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span><font size=\"3\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br \/>\n<\/font> <\/span><font size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\">RELIGION<\/span><\/font><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> is the seeking after the spiritual, the suprarational and<br \/>\ntherefore in this sphere the intellectual reason may well be an insufficient help<br \/>\nand find itself, not only at the end but from the beginning, out of its<br \/>\nprovince <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">and <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">condemned to tread<br \/>\neither diffidently or else with a stumbling<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">presumptuousness in the realm of a power and a light higher than its<br \/>\nown. But in the other spheres of human consciousness and human activity it may<br \/>\nbe thought that it has the right to the sovereign place, since these move on<br \/>\nthe lower plane of the rational and the finite or belong to that border-land<br \/>\nwhere the rational and the infrarational meet and the impulses and the<br \/>\ninstincts of man<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">stand<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> in need above all of the<br \/>\nlight and the control of the reason. In its own sphere of finite knowledge,<br \/>\nscience, philosophy, the useful arts, its right, one would think, must be<br \/>\nindisputable. But this does not turn out in the end to be true. Its province<br \/>\nmay be larger, its powers more ample, its action more justly self-confident,<br \/>\nbut in the end everywhere it finds itself standing between the two other powers<br \/>\nof our being <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">and fulfilling in greater or less degree the<br \/>\n<\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">same function of an intermediary. <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">On one side it is an enlight<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">ener &#8211; not always the chief enlightener &#8211; and the corrector of our<br \/>\nlife-impulses and first mental seekings, on the other it is only one minister<br \/>\nof the veiled Spirit and a preparer of the paths for the coming of its rule.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span><font size=\"3\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><font size=\"3\">This is especially evident in the two<br \/>\nrealms which in the ordinary scale of our powers stand nearest to the reason<br \/>\nand on either side of it, the aesthetic and the ethical being, the search for<br \/>\nBeauty and the search for Good. Man&#8217;s seeking after beauty reaches its most<br \/>\nintense and satisfying expression in the great creative arts, poetry, painting,<br \/>\nsculpture, architecture, but in its full extension there is no activity of his<br \/>\nnature or his life from<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;border:medium none;padding:0in;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">Page<\/font><\/span><font size=\"3\"><span>&#8211;<\/span><\/font><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">127<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">which it need or ought to be<br \/>\nexcluded,<\/font> <font size=\"3\">&#8211;<\/font> <font size=\"3\">provided we under- stand<br \/>\nbeauty both in its widest and its truest sense. A complete and universal<br \/>\nappreciation of beauty and the making entirely beautiful our whole life and<br \/>\nbeing must surely be a necessary character of the perfect individual and the<br \/>\nperfect society. But In its origin this seeking for beauty is not rational; it<br \/>\nsprings from the roots of our life, it is an instinct and an impulse, an<br \/>\ninstinct of aesthetic satisfaction and an impulse of aesthetic creation and<br \/>\nenjoyment. Starting from the infrarational parts of our being, this instinct<br \/>\nand impulse begin with much imperfection and impurity and with great crudities<br \/>\nboth in creation and in appreciation. It is here that the reason comes in to<br \/>\ndistinguish, to enlighten, to correct, to point out the deficiencies and the<br \/>\ncrudities, to lay down laws of aesthetics and to purify our appreciation and<br \/>\nour creation by improved taste and right knowledge. While we are thus striving<br \/>\nto learn and correct ourselves, it may seem to be the true law-giver both for<br \/>\nthe artist and the admirer and, though not the creator of our aesthetic<br \/>\ninstinct and impulse, yet the creator in us of an aesthetic conscience and its<br \/>\nvigilant judge and guide. That which was an obscure and erratic activity, it<br \/>\nmakes self-conscious and rationally discriminative in its work and enjoyment.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span><font size=\"3\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><font size=\"3\">But again this is true only in restricted bounds or, if any-<br \/>\nwhere entirely true, then only on a middle plane of our aesthetic seeking and<br \/>\nactivity. Where the greatest and most powerful creation of beauty is<br \/>\naccomplished and its appreciation and enjoyment rise to the highest pitch, the<br \/>\nrational is always surpassed and left behind. The creation of beauty in poetry<br \/>\nand art does not fall within the sovereignty or even within the sphere of the<br \/>\nreason. The intellect is not the poet, the artist, the creator within us;<br \/>\ncreation comes by a suprarational influx of light and power which must work<br \/>\nalways, if it is to do its best, by vision and inspiration. It may use the<br \/>\nintellect for certain of its operations, but in proportion as it subjects<br \/>\nitself to the intellect it loses in power and force of vision and diminishes<br \/>\nthe splendour and truth of the beauty it creates. The intellect may take hold<br \/>\nof the influx, moderate and repress the divine enthusiasm of creation and force<br \/>\nit to obey the prudence of its dictates, but in doing<\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">so it<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;border:medium none;padding:0in;line-height:150%'>\n<font size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\">Page-128<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">brings down the work to its<br \/>\nown inferior level, and the lowering is in proportion to the intellectual<br \/>\ninterference. For by itself the intelligence can only achieve talent, though it<br \/>\nmay be a high and even, if sufficiently helped from above, &quot;a surpassing<br \/>\ntalent. Genius, the true creator, is always suprarational in its nature<\/font> <font size=\"3\">and its instrumentation even<br \/>\nwhen it seems to be doing the work of the reason; it is most itself, most<br \/>\nexalted in its work, most sustained in the power, depth, height and beauty of<br \/>\nits achievement when it is least touched by, least mixed with any control of<br \/>\nthe mere intellectuality and least often drops from its heights of vision and<br \/>\ninspiration into reliance upon the always mechanical process of intellectual<br \/>\nconstruction. Art-creation which accepts the canons of the reason and works<br \/>\nwithin the limits laid down by it, may be great, beautiful and powerful; for<br \/>\ngenius can preserve its power even when it labours in shackles and refuses to<br \/>\nput forth all its resources; but when it proceeds by means of the intellect, it<br \/>\nconstructs, but does not create. -It may construct well and with a good and<br \/>\nfaultless workmanship, but its success is formal and not of the spirit, a<br \/>\nsuccess of <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">technique and not the embodiment of the<br \/>\nimperishable truth of<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<\/font> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">&#8216; beauty seized in its inner<br \/>\nreality, its divine delight, its appeal to a supreme source of ecstasy, Ananda.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span><font size=\"3\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><font size=\"3\">There have been periods of artistic creation, ages of reason,<br \/>\nin which the rational and intellectual tendency has prevailed in poetry and<br \/>\nart; there have been even nations which in their great formative periods of art<br \/>\nand literature have set up reason and a meticulous taste as the sovereign<br \/>\npowers of their aesthetic activity. At their best these periods have achieved<br \/>\nwork of a certain greatness, but predominantly of an intellectual greatness and<br \/>\nperfection of technique rather than achievements of a supreme inspired and<br \/>\nrevealing beauty; indeed their very aim has been not the discovery of the<br \/>\ndeeper truth of beauty, but truth of ideas and truth of reason, a critical<br \/>\nrather than a true creative aim. Their leading object has been an intellectual<br \/>\ncriticism of life and nature elevated by a consummate poetical rhythm and<br \/>\ndiction rather than a revelation of God and man and life and nature in inspired<br \/>\nforms of artistic beauty. But great art is not satisfied with representing the<br \/>\nintellectual truth of things, which<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<font size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\">Page-129<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">is always their superficial or exterior truth; it seeks for a deeper and<br \/>\noriginal truth which escapes the eye of the mere sense or the mere reason, the<br \/>\nsoul in them, the unseen reality which is not that of their form and process but<br \/>\nof their spirit. This it seizes and expresses by form and idea, but a<br \/>\nsignificant form, which is not merely a faithful and just or a harmonious<br \/>\nreproduction of outward Nature, and a revelatory idea, not the idea which is<br \/>\nmerely correct, elegantly right or fully satisfying to the reason and taste.<br \/>\nAlways the truth it seeks is first and foremost the truth of beauty, &#8211; not,<br \/>\nagain, the formal beauty alone or the beauty of proportion and right process<br \/>\nwhich is what the sense and the reason seek, but the soul of beauty which is<br \/>\nhidden from the ordinary eye and the ordinary mind and revealed in its full<br \/>\nness only to the unsealed vision of the poet and artist in man who can seize<br \/>\nthe secret significances of the universal poet and artist, the divine creator<br \/>\nwho dwells as their soul and spirit in the forms he has created.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span><font size=\"3\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><font size=\"3\">The art-creation which lays a supreme stress on reason and<br \/>\ntaste and on perfection and purity of a technique constructed in obedience to<br \/>\nthe canons of reason and taste, claimed for itself the name of classical art;<br \/>\nbut the claim, like the too trenchant distinction on which it rests, is of<br \/>\ndoubtful validity. The spirit of the real, the great classical art and poetry<br \/>\nis to bring out what is universal and subordinate individual expression to universal<br \/>\ntruth and beauty, just as the spirit of romantic art and poetry is to bring out<br \/>\nwhat is striking and individual, and this it often does so powerfully or with<br \/>\nso vivid an emphasis as to throw into the background of its creation the<br \/>\nuniversal, on which yet all true art romantic or classical builds and fills in<br \/>\nits forms. In truth, all great art has carried in it both a classical and a<br \/>\nromantic as well as a realistic element,<\/font> <font size=\"3\">&#8211;<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">understanding<br \/>\nrealism in the sense of the prominent bringing out of the external truth of<br \/>\nthings, not the perverse inverted romanticism of the &quot;real&quot; which<br \/>\nbrings into exaggerated prominence the ugly, common or morbid and puts that<br \/>\nforward as the whole truth of life. The type of art to which a great creative<br \/>\nwork belongs is determined by the prominence it gives to one element and the<br \/>\nsubdual of the others into subordination to its reigning spirit. But classical<br \/>\nart also<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">Page-130<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">works<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">by a large vision and inspiration,<br \/>\nnot by the process of the <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">intellect. The lower kind of classical art and<br \/>\nliterature, &#8211; if classical it be and not rather, as it often is,<br \/>\npseudo-classical, intellectually imitative of the external form and process of<br \/>\nthe classical, &#8211; may achieve work of considerable, though a much lesser power,<br \/>\nbut of an essentially inferior scope and nature; for to that inferiority it is<br \/>\nself-condemned by its principle of intellectual construction. Almost always it<br \/>\nspeedily degenerates into the formal or academic, empty of real beauty, void of<br \/>\nlife and power, imprisoned in its slavery to form and imagining that when a<br \/>\ncertain form has been followed, certain canons of construction satisfied,<br \/>\ncertain rhetorical rules or technical principles obeyed, all has been achieved.<br \/>\nIt ceases to be art and becomes a cold and mechanical workmanship.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span><font size=\"3\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><font size=\"3\">This predominance given to reason and taste first and<br \/>\nfore- most, sometimes even almost alone, in the creation and appreciation of<br \/>\nbeauty arises from a temper of mind which is critical rather than creative; and<br \/>\nin regard to creation its theory falls into a capital error. All artistic work<br \/>\nin order to be perfect must indeed have in the very act of creation the<br \/>\nguidance of an inner power of discrimination constantly selecting and rejecting<br \/>\nin accordance with a principle of truth and beauty which remains always<br \/>\nfaithful to<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">a<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">harmony, a proportion, an intimate relation <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">of the forms to the idea;<br \/>\nthere is at the same time an exact fidelity of the idea to the spirit, nature and<br \/>\ninner body of the thing of beauty which has been revealed to the soul and the<br \/>\nmind, its <\/font> <\/span><i><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">svarupa <\/font> <\/span><\/i><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">and <i>svabhiiva. <\/i>Therefore<br \/>\nthis discriminating inner sense <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">rejects all that is foreign,<br \/>\nsuperfluous, otiose, all that is a mere diversion distractive and deformative,<br \/>\nexcessive or defective, while it selects and finds sovereignly all that can<br \/>\nbring out the full truth, the utter beauty, the inmost power. But this<br \/>\ndiscrimination is not that of the critical intellect, nor is the harmony,<br \/>\nproportion, relation it observes that which can be fixed by any set law of the<br \/>\ncritical reason; it exists in the very nature and truth of the thing itself,<br \/>\nthe creation itself, in its secret inner law of beauty and harmony which can be<br \/>\nseized by vision, not by intellectual analysis. The discrimination which works in<br \/>\nthe creator is therefore not an intellectual self-criticism or an obedience to<br \/>\nrules im-<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<font size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\">Page &#8211; 131<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">posed on him from outside by any intellectual canons, but itself<br \/>\ncreative, intuitive, a part of the vision, involved in and insepa<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">rable from the act of creation. It comes as part of that influx of<br \/>\n<\/font> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">power and light<br \/>\nfrom above which by its divine enthusiasm lifts the faculties into their<br \/>\nintense suprarational working. When it fails, when it is betrayed by the lower<br \/>\nexecutive instruments rational or infrarational,<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">&#8211;<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">and this happens when these cease to be passive and<br \/>\ninsist on obtruding their own demands or vagaries, &#8211; the work is flawed and a<br \/>\nsubsequent act of self-criticism becomes necessary. But in correcting his work<br \/>\nthe artist who attempts to do it by rule and intellectual process, uses a false<br \/>\nor at any rate an inferior method and cannot do his best. He ought rather to<br \/>\ncall to his aid the intuitive critical vision and embody it in a fresh act of<br \/>\ninspired creation or re-creation after bringing himself back by its means into<br \/>\nharmony with the light and law of his original creative initiation. The<br \/>\ncritical intellect has no direct or independent part in the means of the<br \/>\ninspired creator of beauty<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span><font size=\"3\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><font size=\"3\">In the appreciation of beauty it has a part, but it is not<br \/>\neven there the supreme judge or law-giver. The business of the intellect is to<br \/>\nanalyse the elements, parts, external processes, apparent principles of that<br \/>\nwhich it studies and explain their relations and workings; in doing this it<br \/>\ninstructs and enlightens the lower mentality which has, if left to itself, the<br \/>\nhabit of doing things or seeing what is done and taking all for granted without<br \/>\nproper observation and fruitful understanding. But as with truth of religion,<br \/>\nso with the highest and deepest truth of beauty, the intellectual reason cannot<br \/>\nseize its inner sense and reality, not even the inner truth of the apparent<br \/>\nprinciples and processes, unless it is aided by a higher insight not its own.<br \/>\nAs it cannot give a method, process or rule by which beauty can or ought to be<br \/>\ncreated, so also it cannot give to the appreciation of beauty that deeper<br \/>\ninsight which it needs; it can only help to remove the dullness and vagueness<br \/>\nof the habitual perceptions and conceptions of the lower mind which prevent it<br \/>\nfrom seeing beauty or which give it false and crude aesthetic habits: it does<br \/>\nthis by giving to the mind an external idea and rule of the elements of the<br \/>\nthing it has to perceive and appreciate. What is farther needed is the awakening<br \/>\nof a certain vision, an insight and an intuitive response in the soul. Reason<br \/>\nwhich<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<font size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\">Page-132<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">studies always from outside, cannot give this<br \/>\ninner and more<span>\u00a0 <\/span>intim<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">ate<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">contact; it has to aid itself by a more direct insight<br \/>\nspring<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">ing from the soul itself and to call at every step on<br \/>\nthe intuitive mind to fill up the gap of its own deficiencies.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span><font size=\"3\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><font size=\"3\">We see this in the history of the<br \/>\ndevelopment of literary and artistic criticism. In its earliest stages the<br \/>\nappreciation of beauty is instinctive, natural, inborn, a response of the<br \/>\naesthetic sensitiveness of the soul which does not attempt to give any account<br \/>\nof itself to the thinking intelligence. When the rational intelligence applies<br \/>\nitself to this task, it is not satisfied with recording faithfully the nature<br \/>\nof the response and the thing it has felt, but it attempts to analyse, to lay<br \/>\ndown what is necessary in order to create a just aesthetic gratification, it<br \/>\nprepares a grammar of technique, an artistic law and canon of construction, a<br \/>\nsort of mechanical rule of process for the creation of beauty, a fixed code or<br \/>\nShastra. This brings in the long reign of academic criticism superficial,<br \/>\ntechnical, artificial, governed by the false idea that technique, of which<br \/>\nalone critical reason can give an entirely adequate account, is the most<br \/>\nimportant part of creation and that to every art there can correspond an<br \/>\nexhaustive science which will tell us how the thing is done and give us the<br \/>\nwhole secret and process of its doing. A time comes when the creator of beauty<br \/>\nrevolts and declares the charter of his own freedom, generally in the shape of<br \/>\na new law or principle of creation, and this freedom once vindicated begins to<br \/>\nwiden itself and to carry with it the critical reason out of all its familiar<br \/>\nbounds. A more developed appreciation emerges which begins to seek for new<br \/>\nprinciples of criticism, to search for the soul of the work itself and explain<br \/>\nthe form in relation to the soul or to study the creator himself or the spirit,<br \/>\nnature and ideas of the age he lived in and so to arrive at a right<br \/>\nunderstanding of his work. The intellect has begun to see that its highest<br \/>\nbusiness is not to lay down laws for the creator of beauty, but to help us to<br \/>\nunderstand himself and his work, not only its form and elements but the mind from<br \/>\nwhich it sprang and the impressions its effects create in the mind that<br \/>\nreceives. Here criticism is on its right road, but on a road to a consummation<br \/>\nin which the rational understanding is overpassed and a higher faculty opens,<br \/>\nsuprarational in, its origin and nature.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<font size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\">Page-133<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%;text-indent:30pt'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">For the conscious appreciation of beauty reaches its height of<br \/>\nenlightenment and enjoyment not by analysis of the beauty enjoyed or even by a<br \/>\nright and intelligent understandiJ1g of it,<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> <font size=\"3\">-these things are only a preliminary clarifying of our<br \/>\nfirst unenlightened sense of the beautiful, &#8211; but by an exaltation of the soul<br \/>\nin which it opens itself entirely to the light and power and joy of the<br \/>\ncreation. The soul of beauty in us identifies itself with the soul of beauty in<br \/>\nthe thing created and feels in appreciation the same divine intoxication and<br \/>\nuplifting which the artist felt in creation. Criticism reaches its highest<br \/>\npoint when it becomes the record, account, right description of this response;<br \/>\nit must become itself inspired, intuitive, revealing. In other words, the<br \/>\naction of the intuitive mind must complete the action of the rational<br \/>\nintelligence and it may even wholly replace it and do more powerfully the<br \/>\npeculiar and proper work of the intellect itself; it may explain more intimately<br \/>\nto us the secret of the form, the strands of the process, the inner cause,<br \/>\nessence, mechanism of the defects and limitations of the work as well as of its<br \/>\nqualities. For the intuitive intelligence when it has been sufficiently trained<br \/>\nand developed, can take up always the work of the intellect and do it with a<br \/>\npower and light and insight greater and surer than the power and light of the<br \/>\nintellectual judgment in its widest scope. There is an intuitive discrimination<br \/>\nwhich is more keen and precise in its sight than the reasoning intelligence.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span><font size=\"3\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><font size=\"3\">What has been said of great creative art, that being the<br \/>\nform in which normally our highest and intensest aesthetic satisfaction is<br \/>\nachieved, applies to all beauty, beauty in Nature, beauty in life as well as<br \/>\nbeauty in art. We find that in the end the place of reason and the limits of<br \/>\nits achievement are precisely of the same kind in regard to beauty as in regard<br \/>\nto religion. It helps to enlighten and purify the aesthetic instincts and<br \/>\nimpulses, but it cannot give them their highest satisfaction or guide them to a<br \/>\ncomplete insight. It shapes and fulfils to a certain extent the aesthetic<br \/>\nintelligence, but it cannot justly pretend to give the definitive law for the<br \/>\ncreation of beauty or for the appreciation and enjoyment of beauty. It can only<br \/>\nlead the aesthetic instinct, impulse, intelligence towards a greatest possible<br \/>\nconscious satisfaction, but not to it; it has in the end to hand them over to a<br \/>\nhigher faculty which<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">Page-134<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p style='margin:0;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">is in<br \/>\ndirect touch with the supra rational and in its nature and workings exceeds the<br \/>\nintellect.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span><font size=\"3\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><font size=\"3\">And for the same reason, because that which we are<br \/>\nseeking through beauty is in the end that which we are seeking through<br \/>\nreligion, the Absolute, the Divine. The search for beauty is only in its<br \/>\nbeginning a satisfaction in the beauty of form, the beauty which appeals to the<br \/>\nphysical senses and the vital impressions, impulsions, desires. It is only in<br \/>\nthe middle a satisfaction in the beauty of the ideas seized, the emotions<br \/>\naroused, the perception of perfect process and harmonious combination. Behind<br \/>\nthem the soul of beauty in us desires the contact, the revelation, the<br \/>\nuplifting delight of an absolute beauty in all things which it feels to be<br \/>\npresent, but which neither the senses and instincts by themselves can give,<br \/>\nthough they may be its channels,<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">&#8211;<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">for it is <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">suprasensuous,<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">&#8211; nor the reason and intelligence, though they<br \/>\n<\/font> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">too are a channel,<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">&#8211;<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<\/font> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">for it is suprarational,<br \/>\nsupra-intellectual, &#8211; but to which through all these veils the soul itself<br \/>\nseeks to arrive. When it can get the touch of this universal, absolute <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">beauty, this soul of beauty, this sense of its revelation<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"> <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">in<br \/>\nany slightest or greatest thing, the beauty of a flower, a form, the beauty and<br \/>\npower of a character, an action, an event, a human life, an idea, a stroke of<br \/>\nthe brush or the chisel or a scintillation of the mind, the colours of a sunset<br \/>\nor the grandeur of the tempest, it is then that the sense of beauty in us is<br \/>\nreally, powerfully, entirely satisfied. It is in truth seeking, as in religion,<br \/>\nfor the Divine, the All-Beautiful in man, in nature, in life, in thought, in<br \/>\nart; for God is Beauty and Delight hidden in the variation of his masks and<br \/>\nforms. When, fulfilled in our growing sense and knowledge of beauty and delight<br \/>\nin beauty and our power for beauty, we are able to identify our Selves in soul<br \/>\nwith this Absolute and Divine in all the forms and activities of the world and<br \/>\nshape an image of our inner and our outer life in the highest image we can<br \/>\nperceive and embody of the All-Beautiful, then the aesthetic being in us who<br \/>\nwas born for this end, has fulfilled himself and risen to his divine<br \/>\nconsummation. To find highest beauty is to find God; to reveal, to embody, to<br \/>\ncreate, as we say, highest beauty is to bring out of our souls the living image<br \/>\nand <\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">power<\/font><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<\/font> <\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><font size=\"3\">of<br \/>\nGod.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<font size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\">Page-135<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CHAPTER XIV The Suprarational Beauty &nbsp; \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; RELIGION is the seeking after the spiritual, the suprarational and therefore in this sphere the intellectual reason&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","wpcat-25-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}