{"id":1284,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:50","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1284"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:50","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:50","slug":"42-appreciation-of-poetry-and-art-vol-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/09-the-future-poetry-volume-09\/42-appreciation-of-poetry-and-art-vol-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","title":{"rendered":"-42_Appreciation of Poetry and Art.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n
\n


\nS<\/font>ECTION<\/font>
\nS<\/font>EVEN<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\nAppreciation of Poetry and Art<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

  \n<\/p>\n

\n
\nSUBJECTIVE ELEMENT IN CRITICISM OF POETRY AND ART<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

           
\nA<\/font>ll criticism of poetry is bound to have a strong subjective element in
\nit and that is the source of the violent differences we find in the appreciation
\nof any given author by equally "eminent" critics. All is relative here. Art and
\nBeauty also, and our view of things and our appreciation of them depends on the
\nconscious\u00adness which views and appreciates. Some critics recognise this and go
\nin frankly for a purely subjective criticism \u2014 "this is why I like this and
\ndisapprove of that, I give my own values". Most labour to fit their personal
\nlikes and dislikes to some standard of criticism which they conceive to be
\nobjective; this need of objectivity, of the support of an impersonal truth
\nindependent of our personality or anybody else’s, is the main source of
\ntheories, canons, standards of art. But the theories, canons, standards
\nthemselves vary and are set up in one age only to be broken in another. Is there
\nthen no beauty of art independent of our varying mentalities? Is beauty a
\ncreation of our minds, a construction of our ideas and our senses, not at all
\nexistent in itself? In that case Beauty is non-existent in Nature, it is put
\nupon Nature by our minds through mental imposition, adhyāropa.<\/i>
\nBut this contradicts the fact that it is in response to an object and not
\nindependently of it that the idea of beautiful or not beautiful originally rises
\nwithin us. Beauty does exist in what we see, but there are two aspects of it,
\nessential beauty and the forms it takes. "Eternal beauty wandering on her way"
\ndoes that wandering by a multitudinous variation of forms appealing to a
\nmultitudinous variation of consciousness. There comes in the difficulty. Each
\nindividual consciousness tries to seize the eternal beauty expressed in a form
\n(here a particular poem or work of art), but is either assisted by the form or
\nrepelled by it, wholly attracted or wholly repelled, or partially attracted and
\npartially repelled. There may be errors in the poet’s or artist’s transcription
\nof beauty which mar the reception, but even these have different effects on
\ndifferent people. But the more radical divergences arise from the variation in
\nthe constitution of the mind and its difference of response. Moreover, there are
\nminds, the majority indeed, who do not respond to "artistic" beauty at<\/p>\n

 Page
\n– 471<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

all \u2014 something
\ninartistic appeals much more to what sense of beauty they have \u2014 or else they
\nare not seeking beauty, but only vital pleasure.<\/p>\n

\nA critic cannot escape altogether from these limitations. He<\/span> can try to make himself catholic and
\nobjective and find the merit or special character of all he reads or sees in
\npoetry and art, even when they do not evoke his strongest sympathy or deep\u00adest
\nresponse. I have little temperamental sympathy for much of the work of Pope and
\nDryden, but I can see their extraordinary perfection or force in their own
\nfield, the masterly conciseness, energy, point, metallic precision into which
\nthey cut their thought or their verse, and I can see too how that can with a
\nlittle infu\u00adsion of another quality be the basis of a really great poetic style,
\nas Dryden himself has shown in his best work. But there my appre\u00adciation stops;
\nI cannot rise to the heights of admiration of those who put them on a level with
\nor on a higher level than Wordsworth, Keats or Shelley \u2014 I cannot escape from
\nthe feeling that their work, even though more consistently perfect within their
\nlimits and in their own manner (at least Pope’s), was less great in poetic
\nquality. These divergences rise from a conception of beauty and a feeling for
\nbeauty which belongs to the tempera\u00adment. So too Housman\u2019s exaltation of Blake
\nresults directly from his feeling and peculiar conception of poetic beauty as an
\nappeal to an inner sensation, an appeal marred and a beauty deflowered by
\nbringing in a sharp coating or content of intellectual thought. But that I shall
\nnot discuss now. All this, however, does not mean that criticism is without any
\ntrue use. The critic can help to open the mind to the kinds of beauty he himself
\nsees and not only to discover but to appreciate at their full value certain
\nele\u00adments that make them beautiful or give them what is most characteristic or
\nunique in their peculiar beauty. Housman, for instance, may help many minds to
\nsee in Blake something which they did not see before. They may not agree with
\nhim in his comparison of Blake and Shakespeare, but they can follow him to a
\ncertain extent and seize better that element in poetic beauty which he
\noverstresses but makes at the same time more vividly visible.<\/p>\n

\n5.10.1934<\/p>\n


\nPage – 472<\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\nCONTEMPORARY JUDGMENT OF POETRY<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you
\nsend your poems to five different poets, you are likely to get five absolutely
\ndisparate and discordant estimates of them. A poet likes only the poetry that
\nappeals to his own temperament or taste, the rest he condemns or ignores. (My
\nown case is different, because I am not primarily a poet and have made in
\ncriticism a practice of appreciating everything that can be appreciated, as a
\ncatholic critic would.) Contemporary poetry, besides, seldom gets its right
\njudgment from contemporary critics.<\/p>\n

\nNothing can be more futile than for a poet to write in expec\u00adtation of
\ncontemporary fame or praise, however agreeable that may be, if it comes; but it
\nis not of any definitive value, for very poor poets have enjoyed a great
\ncontemporary fame and very great poets have been neglected in their time, their
\nmerit known only to a few and gathering very slowly a greater volume of
\nappreciation around it. A poet has to go on his way, trying to gather hints from
\nwhat people say for or against when their criticisms are things he can profit
\nby, but not otherwise moved (if he can manage it) \u2014 seeking mainly to sharpen
\nhis own sense of self-criticism by the help of others. Difference of estimate
\nneed not surprise him at all.<\/p>\n

\n2.2.1932<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPOETIC AND
\nARTISTIC VALUE AND POPULAR APPEAL<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span>1<\/b><\/p>\n

I do
\nnot know why your correspondent puts so much value on general understanding and
\nacceptance. Really it is only the few that can be trusted to discern the true
\nvalue of things in poetry and art and if the "general" run accept, it is usually
\nbecause acceptance is sooner or later imposed or induced in their minds by the
\nauthority of the few and afterwards by the verdict of Time. There are
\nexceptions, of course, of a wide spontaneous accep\u00adtance because something that
\nis really good happens to suit a taste or a demand in the general mind of the
\nmoment. Poetic and artistic value does not necessarily command mass
\nunderstanding<\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 473<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

and acceptance.<\/span><\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What
\ndoes he mean? that you can’t write mathematics in verse? I suppose not, it was
\nnot meant to be. You can’t start off<\/p>\n

Oh,
\ntwo by three plus four plus seven! <\/i><\/p>\n

To
\nadd things is to be in heaven.<\/i><\/p>\n

But
\nall the same, if one thinks it worth while to take the trouble, one can express
\nthe mathematician’s delight in discovery, or the grammarian’s in grammatising or
\nthe engineer’s in planning a bridge or a house. What about Browning’s
\nGrammarian’s Funeral? <\/i>The reason why these subjects do not easily get into
\npoetry is because they do not lend themselves to poetic handling, their
\nsubstance being intellectual and abstract and their language also, not as the
\nsubstance and language of poetry must be, emotional and intuitive. It is not
\nbecause they appeal only to a few people and not to the general run of humanity.
\nA good dinner appeals not to a few people but to the general run of humanity,
\nbut it would all the same be a little difficult to write an epic or a lyric on
\nthe greatness of cooking and fine dishes or the joys of the palate and the
\nbelly. Spiritual subjects on the other hand can lend themselves to poetic
\nhandling because they can be expressed in the language of high emotion and
\nradiant intuition. How many people will appreciate it is a question which is
\nirrelevant to the merit of the poetry. More people have appre\u00adciated sincerely
\nMacaulay’s Lays<\/i> or Kipling’s Barrack Room Ballads<\/i> than ever really
\nappreciated Timon of Athens<\/i> or Paradise Regained \u2014<\/i>
\nbut that does not determine the relative value or appropriateness of these
\nthings as poetry. Artistic or poetic value cannot be reckoned by the plaudits or
\nthe reactions of the greatest number.<\/p>\n

\n2.11.1936<\/p>\n

3<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\nIt<\/span> is quite true that all art and poetry is largely dependent on<\/p>\n


\nPage – 474<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

the vital for its
\nactivity and if there is no force of vitality in the poetry then it cannot be
\nstrong or great. But it does not follow that the vital element in poetry will
\nappeal to everybody or a great number of people; it depends on the kind of vital
\nmovement that is there.<\/i> The forceful but inferior sort of vital energy
\nthat you find in Kipling’s ballads appeals to a large mass of people; the vital
\nelement in Milton which is very powerful affects only a few in comparison, the
\nrest take him on trust because he is a great classic but have not the true
\nintense enjoyment of him as of Kip\u00adling. Yet Milton’s greatness will endure \u2014
\nthat cannot be said certainly of Kipling’s ballads. The problem therefore
\nremains where it was. Spiritual poetry also needs the vital force for
\nex\u00adpression; mere spiritual philosophy without the uplifting poetic force in its
\nexpression (which needs the vital energy for its action) cannot appeal to
\nanybody. But all the same in spiritual poetry the vital element adopts a turn
\nwhich may not go home to many, unless it takes a popular religious form which
\nhas a general appeal. There I do not follow quite X\u2019s position \u2014 does he
\ncon\u00adtend that one ought to suit one’s poetry to the mentality of others so that
\nit may have a general appeal, not keeping to its natural purpose of expressing
\nwhat is felt and seen by the poet according to the truth of the inspiration
\nwithin him ? Surely that cannot be recommended; but if it is not done, the
\npossibility of reaching (at first, of course) only a few remains uneliminated.
\nIt is not that a poet deliberately sets out to be appreciated by a few only; he
\nsets out to be himself in his poetry and the rest follows. But consider a poet
\nlike Mallarm\u00e9 writing his strange enigmatic profound style which turned the
\nwhole structure of French upside down he cannot have expected or cared to be
\nread and appre\u00adciated even by that part of the general public which is
\ninterested in and appreciative of poetry. Yet there is no one who had more
\ninfluence on modern French-poets \u2014 he helped to create Verlaine, Val\u00e9ry and a
\nnumber of others who rank among the great ones in French literature and he
\nhimself too now ranks very high though he must still, I should think, be read
\nonly by a com\u00adparatively small though select audience; yet he has practically
\nturned the current of French poetry. So there is something to be said for
\nwriting for oneself even if that implies writing only<\/p>\n

\nPage – 475<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

for the few and not for the many.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs for the actor, that is quite a different art, meant for the public, depending
\non its breath of applause, ineffective if its pub\u00adlic is not moved or captured.
\nA poet publishes, but he can take his chance; if he does not succeed in
\ncommanding widespread attention, he can still continue to write; there is
\nsomething in him which maintains its energy and will to create. If he seeks
\nacknowledged greatness and success\u2014though that is a secondary matter to the
\nforce that makes him write \u2014 he can still sustain himself on the hope of a
\nfuture greatness with posterity; there are plenty of illustrious examples to
\nconsole him.<\/p>\n

\n5.11.1936<\/p>\n

4<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Well,
\nbut did they not say the same thing about Mallarm\u00e9? And what of Blake?
\nContemporary opinion is a poor judge of what shall live or not live. The fact
\nremains that the impressionist movement in poetry initiated by Mallarm\u00e9 has
\nproved to be the most powerful stream in France.
\nand its influence is not confined to that country. The whole thing is that it is
\na mistake to erect a mental theory and try to force into its narrow mould the
\ninfi\u00adnite variety of the processes of Nature. Shakespeare may have so much vital
\nforce as to recommend himself to a large audience not so much for his poetry at
\nfirst as for his dramatic vividness and power; it must be remembered that it was
\nthe German  <\/span>romantics two centuries later
\nwho brought about the apotheosis of Shakespeare \u2014 before that he had a much more
\nlimited circle of admirers. Other great poets have started with a more scanty
\nrecognition. Others have had a great popularity in their lifetime and sunk
\nafterwards to a much lower level of fame. What is im\u00adportant is to preserve the
\nright of the poet to write for himself, that is to say, for the Spirit that
\nmoves him, not to demand from him that he should write down to the level of the
\ngeneral or satisfy even the established taste and standard of the critics or
\nconnoisseurs of his time. For that would mean the end or decay of poetry \u2014 it
\nwould perish of its own debasement. A poet must be free to use his wings even if
\nthey carry him above the comprehension <\/p>\n

\nPage – 476<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

of the public of the
\nday or of the general run of critics or lead him into lonely places. This is all
\nthat matters.<\/p>\n

\nTolstoy’s logic is out of place. Nobody says that the value of the poet must be
\nmeasured by the scantiness of his audience any more than it can be measured by
\nthe extent of his contempo\u00adrary popularity. So there is no room for his reductio ad absurdum <\/i><\/span>What
\nis contended is that it cannot be measured by either stan\u00addard. It must be
\nmeasured by the power of his vision, of his speech, of his feeling, by his
\nrendering of the world within or the world without or of any world to which he
\nhas access. It may be the outer world that he portrays like Homer and Chaucer or
\na vivid life-world like Shakespeare or an inmost world of expe\u00adrience like Blake
\nor other mystic poets. The recognition of that power will come first from the
\nfew who recognise good poetry when they see it and from those who can enter into
\nhis world; afterwards it can spread to the larger number who can recog\u00adnise good
\npoetry when it is shown to them; finally, the still larger public may come in
\nwho learn to appreciate by a slow education, not by instinct and nature. There
\nwas a sound principle in the opinion always held in former times that it is time
\nalone that can test the enduring power of a poet’s work, for contemporary
\nopinion is not reliable.<\/p>\n

\nThere remains the case of the poets great or small or null who immediately
\ncommand a general hearing. They have an ele\u00adment in them which catches at once
\nthe mind of the time: they are saying things which have a general appeal in a
\nway that everybody can understand, in a language and rhythm that all can
\nappreciate. As you say, there must be a vital element in the poetry of such a
\nwriter which gets him his public. The question is, has he anything else and,
\nagain what is the value of this vital element? If he has nothing else or not
\nmuch of any high value, his aureole will not endure. If he has something but not
\nof the best and highest, he will sink in the eyes of posterity, but not set out
\nof sight. If he has in him something of the very greatest and best, his fame
\nwill grow and grow as time goes on \u2014some of the elements that caught him his
\ncontemporary public may fade and lose their value, but the rest will shine with
\nan increasing brightness. But even the vital and popular elements in the work <\/p>\n

\nPage – 477<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

may have different
\nvalues \u2014 Shakespeare’s vitality has the same appeal now as then; Tennyson\u2019s has
\ngot very much depreciated; Longfellow’s is now recognised for the easily current
\ncopper coin that it always was. You must remember that when I speak of the vital
\nforce in a poet as something necessary, I am not speaking of something that need
\nbe low or fitted only to catch the general mind, not fit to appeal to a higher
\njudgment, but some\u00adthing that can be very valuable from the highest point of
\nview. When Milton writes<\/p>\n

Fall\u2019n Cherub, to be -weak is
\nmiserable,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

or
\ndescribes the grandeur of the fallen archangel, there is a vital force there
\nthat is of the highest quality, \u2014 so is that of Shakes\u00adpeare; so is that of many
\npieces of Blake. This vital energy makes the soul stir within you. Nothing can
\nbe more high and sublime than the vital energy in Arjuna’s description of the
\nVirat Purusha in the Grta. <\/p>\n

\n6.11.1936<\/p>\n


\n5<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I
\nremain convinced that fame is a fluke. Even a settled literary fame seems to be
\na very fluctuating affair. Who gave a thought to Blake or Donne in former times
\n\u2014 when I was in England,
\nfor instance? But now they bid fair to be reckoned among the great poets. I see
\nthat Byron is in the depths, the quotations for Pope and Dryden are rising, it
\nwas very different in those days.<\/p>\n

\n                     5.2.1932<\/p>\n

6<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What
\nis not understood or appreciated by one select circle may be understood or
\nappreciated by another select circle or in the future like Blake’s poetry.
\nNobody appreciated Blake in his own time. Now he ranks as a great poet, more
\npoetic than Shakes\u00adpeare, says Housman. Tagore wrote he could not appreciate X\u2019s
\npoetry because it is too "Yogic" for him. Is Tagore unselect, one of the public
\nat large?   <\/p>\n


\nPage – 478<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I don’t agree at all
\nwith not publishing because you won’t be understood. At that rate many great
\npoets would have re\u00admained unpublished. What about the unintelligible Mallarm\u00e9
\nwho had such a great influence on later French poetry?<\/p>\n

\n24.7.1936<\/p>\n

\nABIDING INTUITION OF POETIC AND ARTISTIC GREATNESS<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes,
\nof course there is an intuition of greatness by which the great poet or artist
\nis distinguished from those who are less great and these again from the
\nnot-great-at-all. But you are asking too much when you expect this intuition to
\nwork with a mechanical instantaneousness and universality so that all shall have
\nthe same opi\u00adnion and give the same values. The greatness of Shakespeare, of
\nDante\u00bb of others of the same rank is unquestioned and unques\u00adtionable and the
\nrecognition of it has always been there in their own time and afterwards. Virgil
\nand Horace stood out in their own day in the first rank among the poets and that
\nverdict has never been reversed since. The area of a poet’s fame may vary; it
\nmay have been seen first by a few, then by many, then by all. At first there may
\nbe adverse critics and assailants, but these negative voices die away.
\nQuestionings may rise from time to time \u2014 e.g. as to whether Lucretius was not a
\ngreater poet than Virgil \u2014 but these are usually from individuals and the
\ngeneral verdict abides always. Even lesser poets retain their rank in spite of
\nfluctuations of their fame. You speak of the discrediting of some and the
\nrehabilitation of the discredited. That happened to Pope and Dryden. Keats and
\nhis contemporaries broke their canons and trampled over their corpses to reach
\nromantic freedom; now there is a rehabilitation. But all this is something of an
\nillusion \u2014 for mark that even at the worst Pope and Dryden retained a place
\namong the great names of English literature. No controversy, no depreciation
\ncould take that away from them. This proves my contention that there is an
\nabiding intuition of poetic and artistic greatness.     <\/p>\n

\nThe attempts at comparison of poets likej31ake and Shakes\u00adpeare or Dante, and
\nShakespeare by critics like Housman and<\/p>\n


\nPage – 479<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

Eliot? It seems to,-me
\nthat these are irrelevant and otiose. Both Dante and Shakespeare stand at the
\nsummit of poetic fame, but each with so different a way of genius that
\ncomparison is un\u00adprofitable. Shakespeare has powers that Dante cannot rival;
\nDante has heights which Shakespeare could not reach; but in essence they stand
\nas mighty equals. As for Blake and Shakes\u00adpeare, that opinion is more a personal
\nfantasy than anything else. Purity and greatness are not the same thing; Blake’s
\nmay be pure poetry in Housman’s sense and Shakespeare’s not except in a few
\npassages; but nobody can contend that Blake’s genius had the width and volume
\nand richness of Shakespeare’s. It can be said that Blake as a mystic poet
\nachieved things beyond Shakes\u00adpeare’s measure \u2014 for Shakespeare had not the
\nmystic’s vision; but as a poet of the play of life Shakespeare is everywhere and
\nBlake nowhere. These are tricks of language and idiosyncrasies of preference.
\nOne has to put each thing in its place without confusing issues and then one can
\nsee that Housman’s praise of Blake may be justified but any exaltation of him by
\ncomparison with Shakespeare is not in accordance with the abiding intuition of
\nthese things which remains undisturbed by any individual verdict.<\/p>\n

The errors of great poets in judging their
\ncontemporaries are personal freaks \u2014 they are failures in intuition due to the
\nmind’s temporary movements getting in the way of the intuition. The errors of
\nGoethe and Bankim were only an over-estimation of a genius or a talent that was
\nnew and therefore attractive at the time. Richardson’s Pamela<\/i> was after
\nall the beginning of modern fiction. As I have said, the general intuition does
\nnot work at once and with a mechanical accuracy. Over-estimation of a
\ncontemporary is frequent, under-estimation also. But, taken on the whole, the
\nreal poet commands at first or fairly soon the verdict of the few whose eyes are
\nopen \u2014 and often the attacks of those whose eyes are shut \u2014 and the few grow in
\nnumbers till the general intuition affirms their verdict. There may be
\nexceptions, for there is hardly a rule without exceptions, but this is, I think,
\ngenerally true.      <\/p>\n

As for the verdict of Englishmen upon a French poet or
\nvice versa,<\/i> that is due to a difficulty in entering into the finer spirit<\/p>\n

\nPage – 480<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

and subtleties of a
\nforeign language. It is difficult for a French-man to get a proper appreciation
\nof-Keats or Shelley or for an Englishman to judge Racine,
\nfor this reason. But a Frenchman like Maurois who knows English as an Englishman
\nknows it, can get the full estimation of a poet like Shelley well enough. These
\nvariations must be allowed for; the human mind is not a perfect instrument, its
\nbest intuitions are veiled by irrelevant mental formations; but in these matters
\nthe truth asserts itself and stands fairly firm and clear in essence through all
\nchanges of mental weather.<\/p>\n

6.10.1934<\/p>\n


\nCOMPARISON OF THE ARTS<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

1<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not know what to
\nsay on the subject you propose to me \u2014 the superiority of music to poetry\u2014for my
\nappreciation of music is bodiless and inexpressible, while about poetry I can
\nwrite at ease with an expert knowledge. But is it necessary to fix a scale of
\ngreatness between two fine arts when each has its own great\u00adness and can touch
\nin its own way the extremes of aesthetic Ananda? Music, no doubt, goes nearest
\nto the infinite and to the essence of things because it relies wholly on the
\nethereal vehicle, śabda,<\/i> (architecture by the by can do something of the
\nsame kind at the other extreme even in its imprisonment in mass); but painting
\nand sculpture have their revenge by liberating visible form into ecstasy, while
\npoetry though it cannot do with sound what music does, yet can make a
\nmany-stringed harmony, a sound revelation winging the creation by the word and
\nsetting afloat vivid suggestions of form and colour, \u2014 that gives it in a very
\nsubtle kind the power of all the arts. Who shall decide between such claims or
\nbe a judge between these godheads?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n2<\/b><\/p>\n

I fear
\nI must disappoint you. I am not<\/i> going to pass the Gods
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 481<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

\nthrough a competitive examination and assign a highest place to one and lower
\nplaces to others. What an idea! Each has his or her own province on the summits
\nand what is the necessity of putting them in rivalry with the others? It is a
\nsort of Judgment of Paris you want to impose on me? Well, but what became of
\nParis
\nand Troy<\/span>?<\/span> You want me to give the crown or
\napple to Music and enrage the Goddesses of Painting, Sculpture, Archi\u00adtecture,
\nEmbroidery, all the Nine Muses?<\/p>\n

\nYour test of precedence \u2014 universal appeal \u2014 is all wrong. I don’t know that it
\nis true, in the first place. Some kind of sound called music appeals to
\neverybody, but has really great music a universal appeal? And, speaking of arts,
\nmore people go to the theatre or read fiction than go to the opera or a concert.
\nWhat ‘ becomes then of the superior universality of music, even in the cheapest
\nsense <\/b>of<\/span> universality?
\nRudyard Kipling\u2019s Barrack Room Ballads<\/i> exercise a more universal appeal
\nthan was ever reached by Milton or Keats \u2014 we will say nothing of writers like
\nBlake or Francis Thompson; a band on the pier at a seaside resort will please
\nmore people than a great piece of music with the orchestration conducted by Sir
\nThomas <\/span>Beecham. In a world of gods it
\nmight be true that the highest makes the most universal appeal, but here in a
\nworld of beasts and men…it is usually the inferior things that have the more
\ngeneral if not quite uni\u00adversal appeal. On the other hand the opposite system
\nyou suggest (the tables turned upside down \u2014 the least universal and most
\ndifficult appeal makes the greatest art) would also have its dangers. At that
\nrate we should have to concede that the cubist and abstract painters had reached
\nthe highest art possible, only rivalled by the up-to-date modernist poets of
\nwhom it has been said that their works are not at all either read or understood
\nby the public, are read and understood only by the poet himself and are read
\nwithout being understood by his personal friends and admirers.<\/p>\n

\nWhen you speak of direct appeal, you are perhaps touching something true.
\nTechnique does not come in\u2014for although to have a complete and expert judgment
\nor appreciation you must know the technique not only in music and painting where
\nit is more difficult, but in poetry and architecture also, it is something
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage – 482<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

else
\nand not that kind of judgment of which you are speak\u00ading. It is perhaps true
\nthat music goes direct to the intuition and feeling with the least necessity for
\nthe using of the thinking mind with its strongly limiting conceptions as a
\nself-imposed middle\u00adman, while painting and sculpture do need it and poetry
\nstill more. At that rate music would come first, architecture next, then
\nsculpture and painting, poetry last. I am aware that Housman posits nonsense as
\nthe essence of pure poetry and considers its appeal to be quite direct \u2014 not to
\nthe soul but to somewhere about the stomach. But then there is hardly any pure
\npoetry in this world and the little there is is still m\u00e9lang\u00e9 <\/i>with at
\nleast a homeopathic dose of intellectual meaning. But again if I admit this
\nthesis of excellence by directness, I shall be getting myself into dangerous
\nwaters. For modern painting has become either cubist or abstract and it claims
\nto have got rid of mental representation and established in art the very method
\nof music; it paints not the object, but the truth behind the object \u2014 by the use
\nof pure line and colour and geometrical form which is the basis of all forms or
\nelse by figures which are not represen\u00adtations but significances. For instance a
\nmodern painter wishing to make a portrait of you will paint at the top a clock
\nsurrounded by three triangles, below them a chaos of rhomboids and at the bottom
\ntwo table castors to represent your feet and he will put in underneath this
\npowerful design, "Portrait of N". Perhaps your soul will leap up in answer to
\nits direct appeal and recognise at once the truth behind the object, behind your
\nvanished physical self,\u2014you will greet your psychic being or your Atman or at
\nleast your inner physical or vital being. Perhaps also you won’t. Poetry also
\nseems to be striving towards the same end by the same means \u2014 the getting away
\nfrom mind into the depths of life or, as the profane might put it, arriving at
\ntruth and beauty through ugliness and unintelligibility. From that you will
\nperhaps deduce that the attempt of painting and poetry to do what music alone
\ncan do easily and directly without these acrobatics is futile because it is
\ncontrary to their nature \u2014 which proves your thesis that music is the highest
\nart because most direct in its appeal to the soul and the feeling. Maybe \u2014 or
\nmaybe not; as the Jams put it, syād vā syād vā. <\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage – 483<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

I have written so
\nmuch, you will see, in order to say nothing \u2014 or at least to avoid your attempt
\nat putting me in an embar\u00adrassing dilemma.<\/p>\n

3<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

… <\/b>
\nOr<\/span> shall we put it in this way "Each of the great arts has its own appeal
\nand its own way of appeal and each in its own way<\/p>\n

is
\nsupreme above all others"? That ought to do.<\/p>\n

\n6.1.1936<\/p>\n

\nDANCE<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dance
\nalone with rhythm and significance can express something of the occult or of the
\nDivine as much as writing or poetry or art \u2014 why should it not and why should
\nthere be anything in it<\/p>\n

\ncondemnable?<\/p>\n

\n17.7.1933<\/p>\n

\nPOETRY
\nAND NOVEL<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No
\nneed to put poetry against novel and make a case between them. Both can be given
\nadmission to the spiritual Parnassus \u2014 but not all poetry
\nand all novels. All depends on the con\u00adsciousness from which the thing is done.
\nIf it is done from the psychic or the spiritual consciousness and bears the
\nstamp of its source, that is sufficient. Of course there are certain things that
\ncannot be done from there, but neither poetry nor fiction is in that case. They
\ncan be lifted to a higher level and made the expression of the psychic or
\nspiritual mind and vision. When that is said, all is said. I hope my brevity has
\nbeen of the right kind \u2014 and not left the question mystically obscure.<\/p>\n

\n9.6.1936<\/p>\n

\nMUSICAL EXCELLENCE AND GENERAL CULTURE<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have
\nnot seen the remarks in question. I don’t suppose all-<\/p>\n


\nPage – 484<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

round general culture
\nhas much to do with excelling in music. Music is a gift independent of any such
\nthing and it can hardly be said that, given a musical gift in two people, the
\none with an all-round culture would go farther than the other in musical
\nexcel\u00adlence. That would not be true in any of the arts. But something else was
\nmeant, perhaps, \u2014 that there is a certain turn or element in the excellence
\nwhich an all-round culture makes possible? It is only in that sense that it
\ncould be true. Shakespeare’s poetry, for instance, is that of a man with a vivid
\nand many-sided response to life; it gives the impression of a multifarious
\nknow\u00adledge of things but it was a knowledge picked up from life as he went:
\nMilton’s gets a certain colour from his studies and learn\u00ading; in neither case
\nis the genius or the excellence of the poetry due to culture, but there is a
\ncertain turn or colouring in Milton which would have not been there otherwise
\nand which is not there in Shakespeare. It does not give any superiority in
\npoetic excel\u00adlence to one over the other.<\/p>\n

\n12.11.1936<\/p>\n

\nCOMMENT ON CROCE’S THEORY OF AESTHETICS<\/font>1<\/font><\/sup><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have
\nnot read Croce but it seems to me that Durant must have taken something of their
\ndepth out of them in his presentation.<\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font><\/span>This comment is apropos of the
\nfollowing passages from a statement of Benedetto Croce’s philosophy of
\naesthetics presented by Will Durant in <\/font> <\/span>
\nThe Story of
\nPhilosophy<\/font><\/span>
\n(Earnest Benn, London, 1948), pp. 406-407:<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n" ‘Knowledge has two forms: it is either <\/font> <\/span>
\n
\nintuitive<\/font><\/span>
\nknowledge or <\/font> <\/span>
\nlogical<\/font><\/span>
\nknowledge; know\u00adledge obtained through the imagination or knowledge obtained
\nthrough the intellect; knowledge of the individual or knowledge of the
\nuniversal; of individual things or of the relations between them; it is the
\nproduction either of images or of concepts.’ (B Croce, \u00c6sthetic, 1902, D- P-1.)
\nThe origin of art, therefore, lies in the power of forming images. ‘Art is ruled
\nuniquely by the imagination. Images are its only wealth. It does not classify
\nobjects, it does not pronounce them real or imaginary, does not qualify them,
\ndoes not define them; it feels and presents them  <\/span>\u2014nothing more.’ (In Carr, <\/font> <\/span>
\nThe Philosophy of Benedetto Croce<\/font><\/span>, 1917,
\np. 35.) Because imagination precedes thought, and is necessary to it, the
\nartistic, or image-forming, activity of the mind is prior to the logical,
\nconcept-forming, activity. Man is an artist as soon as he imagines, and long
\nbefore he reasons. <\/span>
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n


\n"The
\ngreat artists understood the matter so. ‘One paints not with the hands but with
\nthe brain,’ said Michelangelo; and Leonardo wrote: ‘The minds of men of lofty
\ngenius are most active in invention when they are doing the least external
\nwork.\u2019 Everybody knows the story told of Da Vinci, that when he was painting the
\n‘Last Supper’, he sorely displeased the Abbot who had ordered the work, by
\nsitting motionless for days before an untouched canvas; and revenged himself for
\nthe importunate Ahbot’s persistent query \u2014 When would- he begin to work? \u2014 by
\nusing the gentleman as an unconscious model for the figure of Judas.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n


\n"The
\nessence of the assthetic activity lies in this motionless effort of the artist
\nto conceive the perfect image that shall express the subject he has in mind; it
\nlies in a form of intuition that involves no mystic insight, but perfect sight,
\ncomplete perception, and adequate imagi\u00adnation. The miracle of art lies not in
\nthe externalization but in the conception of the idea;<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n


\nexternalization is a matter of
\nmechanical technique and manual skill.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n


\n‘When we
\nhave mastered the internal word, when we have vividly and clearly conceived a
\nfigure or a statue, when we have found a musical theme, expression is born and
\nis com\u00adplete, nothing more is needed. If, then, we open our mouth, and speak or
\nsing,…what we do is to say aloud what we have already said within, to sing
\naloud what we have already sung within. If our hands strike the keyboard of the
\npianoforte, if we take up pencil or chisel, such actions are willed’ (they
\nbelong to the practical, not to the aesthetic, activity), ‘arid what we are then
\ndoing is executing in great movements what we have already executed briefly and
\nrapidly within.’ (B.Croce, \u00c6sthetic, 1902, p. 50.)"<\/span><\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 485<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\n       <\/span>At any rate, I cannot accept the proposition that there are only two
\nforms of knowledge, imaginative and intellectual, \u2014 still less if these two are
\nmade to coincide with the division between knowledge of the individual and that
\nof the universal and again with image-production and concepts. Art can be
\nconceptual as well as imaginative \u2014 it may embody ideas and not merely produce
\nimages. I do not see the relevancy of the Da Vinci story \u2014 one can sit
\nmotionless to summon up concepts as well as ima\u00adges or a concept and image
\ntogether. Moreover, what is this intuition which is perfect sight and adequate
\nimagination, that is production of an image, \u2014 is it empty of all "idea", of all
\ncon\u00adception ? Evidently not, \u2014 for immediately it is said that the miracle of
\nart lies in the conception of an idea. What then be\u00adcomes of the division
\nbetween the production of images and the production of concepts; and how can it
\nbe said that Art is ruled only by the image-producing power and images are its
\nonly wealth? All this seems to be very contradictory and confusing. You cannot
\ncut up the human mind in that way \u2014 the attempt is that of the analysing
\nintellect which is always putting things as trenchantly divided and opposite. If
\nit had been said that in Art the synthetic action of the idea is more prominent
\nthan the analytic idea which we find most prominent in logic and science and
\nphilosophical reasoning, then one could understand the , statement. The
\nintegrating or direct integral conception and the image-making faculty are the
\ntwo leading powers of Art with <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 486<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

intuition as the
\ndriving force behind it \u2014 that too would be a statement that is intelligible.<\/p>\n

\nStill more strange is the statement that the externalisation is outside the
\nmiracle of art and is not needed; beauty, he says, is adequate expression, but
\nhow can there be expression, an expressive image without externalisation? The
\ninner image may be the thing to be expressed, it may itself be expressive of
\nsome truth but unless it is externalised how can the spectator contem\u00adplating
\nbeauty contemplate it at all or get into unity of vision with the artist who
\ncreates it? The difference between Shakespeare and ourselves lies only in the
\npower of inwardly forming an image, not in the power of externalising it? But
\nthere are many people who have the power of a rich inner imaging of things, but
\nare quite unable to put them down on paper or utter them in speech or transfer
\nthem to canvas or into clay or bronze or stone. They are then as great creative
\nartists as Shakespeare or Michael Angelo? I should have thought that
\nShakespeare\u2019s power of the word and Michael Angelo’s of translating his image
\ninto visible form is at least an indispensable part of the art of expression,
\ncreation or image-making. I cannot conceive of a Shakespeare or Michael Angelo
\nwithout that power \u2014 the one would be a mute inglorious Shakespeare and the
\nother a rather helpless and ineffective Angelo.<\/p>\n

\n19.12.1936<\/p>\n

P.S. This is of course a comment on the statement as
\npresented \u2014 I would have to read Croce myself in order to form a conception of
\nwhat is behind his philosophy of Aesthetics.<\/p>\n

Page – 487<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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