{"id":4397,"date":"2013-07-13T01:55:43","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=4397"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:55:43","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:55:43","slug":"42-9-april-1951-vol-04-questions-and-answers-volume-04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/02-works-of-the-mother\/01-cwmce\/04-questions-and-answers-volume-04\/42-9-april-1951-vol-04-questions-and-answers-volume-04","title":{"rendered":"-42_9 April 1951.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n9 April 1951<\/font><\/span><\/b>
\n<\/font> <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Mother reads a passage about art and yoga (Questions
\nand Answers 1929, 28 July), then asks<\/font><\/span>: <\/span><\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What is the
\nrelation between art and yoga ? Can the artist and the yogi have the same source
\nof inspiration ? (Mother turns to a
\ndisciple<\/i>\ud83d\ude42 Amrita, will you tell us what relation there is between art and
\nyoga ? <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

A beautiful relation… Art can be a yoga
\nand yoga is an art. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That’s very fine !
\nI knew someone, an American lady, who said that spirituality was supreme good
\ntaste, the best possible good taste. This is quite similar.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

What do serpents signify in books and in
\ndreams ? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That depends on
\nthe books ! That depends on the dreams ! If you give me an example from a dream
\nI shall tell you what the nature of your serpent was, but just like that,
\n\u201cserpents\u201d is too vague. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Why is modern art so ugly ? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I believe the
\nchief reason is that people have become more and more lazy and do not want to
\nwork. They want to produce something before having worked, they want to know
\nbefore having studied and they want to make a name before having done anything
\ngood. So, this is the open door for all sorts of things, as we see…
\nNaturally, there are exceptions. <\/span><\/p>\n

I have known
\nartists who were great artists, who had worked hard and produced remarkable
\nthings, classical, that is, not ultra-<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 297<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

modern. But they
\nwere not in fashion because, precisely, one had not to be classical. When a
\nbrush was put in the hands of an individual who had never touched a brush, and
\nwhen a brush was put on a palette of colours and the man had never touched a
\npalette before, then if this individual had in front of him a bit of canvas on
\nan easel and he had never done a picture before, naturally he daubed anything
\nat all; he took the colours and threw them in a haphazard way; then everybody
\ncried out \u201cAdmirable\u201d, \u201cMarvellous\u201d, \u201cIt is the expression of your soul\u201d, \u201cHow
\nwell this reveals the truth of things\u201d, etc… ! This was the fashion and
\npeople who knew nothing were very successful. The poor men who had worked, who
\nknew their art well, were not asked for their pictures any longer; people said,
\n\u201cOh ! This is old-fashioned, you will never find customers for such things.\u201d
\nBut, after all, they were hungry, you see, they had to pay their rent and buy
\ntheir colours and all the rest, and that is costly. Then what could they do ?
\nWhen they had received rebuffs from the picture dealers who all told them the
\nsame thing, \u201cBut try to be modern, my friend; look here, you are behind the
\ntimes\u201d, as they were very hungry, what could they do ?…I knew a painter, a
\ndisciple of Gustav Moreau; he was truly a very fine artist, he knew his work
\nquite well, and then… he was starving, he did not know how to make both ends
\nmeet and he used to lament. One day, a friend intending to help him, sent a
\npicture dealerto see him. When the merchant entered his studio, this poor man
\ntold himself, \u201cAt last! Here’s my chance\u201d, and he showed him all the best work
\nhe had done. The art dealer made a face, looked around, turned over things and
\nbegan rummaging in all the corners; and suddenly he found… Ah ! I must
\nexplain this to you, you are not familiar with these things: a painter, after
\nhis day’s work has at times some mixed colours left on his palette; he cannot
\nkeep them, they dry up in a day; so he always has with him some pieces of
\ncanvas which are not well prepared and which he daubs with what are called \u201cthe
\nscrapings of palettes\u201d (with supple knives he scrapes all the colours<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 298<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

from the palette
\nand applies them on the canvases) and as there are many mixed colours, this
\nmakes unexpected designs. There was in a corner a canvas like that on which he
\nused to put his palette-scrapings. The merchant suddenly falls upon that and
\nexclaims, \u201cHere you are ! My friend, you are a genius, this is a miracle, it is
\nthis you should show ! Look at this richness of tones, this variety of forms,
\nand what an imagination !\u201d And this poor man who was starving said shyly, \u201cBut
\nsir, these are my palette-scrapings !\u201d And the art-dealer caught hold of him:
\n\u201cSilly fool, this is not to be told !\u201d Then he said, \u201cGive me this, I undertake
\nto sell it. Give me as many of these as you like; ten, twenty, thirty a month,
\nI shall sell them all for you and I shall make you famous.\u201d Then, as I told
\nyou, his stomach was protesting; he was not happy, but he said, \u201cAll right,
\ntake it, I shall see.\u201d Then the landlord comes to demand his rent, the
\ncolour-man comes demanding payment of the old bill; the purse is quite empty,
\nand what is to be done ? So though he did not make pictures with
\npalette-scrapings, he did something which gave the imagination free play, where
\nthe forms were not too precise, the colours were all mixed and brilliant, and
\none could not know overmuch what one was seeing; and as people did not know
\nvery much what they saw, those who understood nothing about it exclaimed, \u201cHow
\nbeautiful it is !\u201d And he supplied this to his art-dealer. He never made a name
\nfor himself with his real painting, which was truly very fine (it was really
\nvery fine, he was a very good painter), but he won a world reputation with
\nthese horrors ! And this was just at the beginning of modern painting, this
\ngoes back to the Universal Exhibition of 1900; if I were to tell you his name,
\nyou would all recognise it…Now, of course, they have gone far beyond, they
\nhave done much better. However, he had the sense of harmony and beauty and his
\ncolours were beautiful. But at present, as soon as there is the least beauty,
\nit won’t do at all, it has to be outrageously ugly, then that, that is modern !
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The story began with… the man who used
\nto do still-life and<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage – 299<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

whose
\nplates were never round… C<\/span>\u00e9<\/span>zanne ! It was he who began it; he said that if plates
\nwere painted round that would not be living; that when one looks at things
\nspontaneously, never does one see plates round: one sees them like this (gesture<\/i>). I don’t know why, but he said
\nthat it is only the mind that makes us see plates as round, because one knows
\nthey are round, otherwise one does not see them round. It is he who began…He
\npainted a still-life which was truly a very beautiful thing, note that; a very
\nbeautiful thing, with an impression of colour and form truly surprising (I
\ncould show you reproductions one day, I must be having them, but they are not
\ncolour reproductions unfortunately; the beauty is really in the colour). But,
\nof course, his plate was not round. He had friends who told him just this, \u201cBut
\nafter all, why don’t you make your plate round ?\u201d He replied, \u201cMy dear fellow,
\nyou are altogether mental, you are not an artist; it is because you think that
\nyou make your plates round: if you only see, you will do it like this\u201d (gesture<\/i>). It is in accordance with the
\nimpression that the plate ought to be painted; it gives you an impact, you
\ntranslate the impact, and it is this which is truly artistic. It is like this
\nthat modern art began. And note that he was right. His plates were not round,
\nbut he was right in principle.<\/span><\/p>\n

What has made art
\nwhat it is (do you want me to tell you this, psychologically ?) is photography.
\nPhotographers did not know their job and gave you hideous things, frightfully
\nugly; it was mechanical, it had no soul, it had no art, it was horrible. All
\nthe first attempts of photography until… not very long ago, were like that.
\nIt is about fifty years ago that it became tolerable, and now with gradual
\nimprovement it has become something good; but it must be said that the process
\nis absolutely different. In those days, when your portrait was taken, you sat
\nin a comfortable chair, you had to sit leaning nicely and facing an enormous
\nthing with a black cloth, which opened like this towards you. And the man
\nordered, \u201cDon’t move ! Steady !\u201d That, of course, was the end of the old
\npainting. When the painter <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 300<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

made\u00a0 <\/span>something lifelike, a lifelike portrait, his
\nfriends said, \u201cWhy now, this is photography !\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

It must be said
\nthat the art of the end of the last century, the art of the <\/span>Second Empire<\/span>, was bad. It was
\nan age of businessmen, above all an age of bankers, financiers, and taste, upon
\nmy word, had gone very low. I don’t believe that businessmen are people necessarily
\nvery competent in art, but when they wanted their portrait, they wanted a
\nlikeness ! One could not leave out the least detail, it was quite comic: \u201cBut
\nyou know I have a little wrinkle there, don’t forget to put it in !\u201d and the
\nlady who said, \u201cYou know, you must make my shoulders quite round\u201d, and so on.
\nSo the artists made portraits which indeed turned into photography. They were
\nflat, cold, without soul and without vision. I can name a number of artists of
\nthat period, it was truly a shame for art. This lasted till about the end of
\nthe last century, till about 1875. Afterwards, there started the reaction. Then
\nthere was an entire very beautiful period (I don’t say this because I myself
\nwas painting) but all the artists I then knew were truly artists, they were
\nserious and did admirable things which have remained admirable. It was the
\nperiod of the impressionists; it was the period of Manet, it was a beautiful
\nperiod, they did beautiful things. But people tire of beautiful things as they
\ntire of bad ones. So there were those who wanted to found the \u201cSalon
\nd’Automne\u201d. They wanted to surpass the others, go more towards the new, towards
\nthe truly anti-photographic. And my goodness, they went a little beyond the
\nlimit (according to my taste). They began to depreciate Rembrandt ─
\nRembrandt was a dauber, Titian was a dauber, all the great painters of the
\nItalian Renaissance were daubers. You were not to pronounce the name of
\nRaphael, it was a shame. And all the great period of the Italian Renaissance
\nwas \u201cnot worth very much\u201d; even the works of Leonardo da Vinci; \u201cYou know, you
\nmust take them and leave them.\u201d Then they went a little further; they wanted
\nsomething entirely new, they became extravagant. And then, from there, there
\nwas only one more step to
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 301<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

take for the
\npalette-scrapings and then it was finished.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This is the history of art as I knew it. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>Now, to tell you the truth, we are climbing up
\nthe curve again. Truly, I think we had gone down to the depths of incoherence,
\nabsurdity, nastiness ─ of the taste for the sordid and ugly, the dirty,
\nthe outrageous. We had gone, I believe, to the very bottom. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Are we really going up again? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I think so.
\nRecently I saw some pictures which truly showed something other than ugliness
\nand indecency. It is not yet art, it is very far from being beautiful, but
\nthere are signs that we are going up again. You will see, fifty years hence we
\nshall perhaps have beautiful things to see. I felt this some days ago, that
\ntruly we had come to the end of the descending curve \u2013 we are still very low
\ndown, but are beginning to climb up. There is a kind of anguish and there is
\nstill a complete lack of understanding of what beauty can and should be, but
\none finds an aspiration towards something which will not be sordidly material.
\nFor a time art had wanted to wallow in the mire, to be what they called
\n\u201crealistic\u201d. They had chosen as \u201creal\u201d what was most repulsive in the world,
\nmost ugly: all deformities, all filth, all ugliness, all the horrors, all the
\nincoherences of colour and form; well, I believe this is behind us now. I had
\nthis feeling very strongly these last few days (not through seeing pictures,
\nfor we do not have a chance to see much here, but by \u201csensing the atmosphere\u201d).
\nAnd even in the reproductions we are shown, there is some aspiration towards
\nsomething which would be a little higher. It will need about fifty years;
\nthen…Unless there is another war, another catastrophe; because certainly, to
\na large extent, what is responsible for this taste for the sordid are the wars
\nand the horrors of war. People were compelled to put aside all refined
\nsensibility, the love of harmony, the need for beauty, to be able to undergo
\nall that; otherwise, I believe, they would
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 302<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

really have died
\nof horror. It was so unspeakably foul that it could not be tolerated, so it
\nperverted men’s taste everywhere and when the war was over (admitting that it
\never ended), they wanted only one thing, to forget, forget, forget. To seek
\ndistraction, not to think of all the horror they had suffered. Now there, one
\ngoes very low. The whole vital atmosphere is completely vitiated and the
\nphysical atmosphere is terribly obscure. <\/span><\/p>\n

Hence, if we can
\nescape another world war…Because war is there, it has never stopped. It has
\nbeen there from almost the beginning of this century; it began with <\/span>China<\/span>, <\/span>Turkey<\/span>, <\/span>
\nTripolitania<\/span>, <\/span>Morocco<\/span> \u2013 you are
\nfollowing? \u2013 the Balkans, it has never stopped, it has become worse, but each
\ntime it has become a world war, it has assumed altogether sordid proportions.
\nAll you my children, you have been born after the war (I am speaking of the
\nFirst [World] War), so you do not know much about this, and then you have been
\nborn here, in a country which has been truly privileged. But the children born
\nin <\/span>Europe<\/span>, latterly, these
\nlittle ones, who were children of the war, carry something in them which will
\nbe very difficult to efface, a kind of horror, a fright. One could not have
\nbeen mixed up with that without knowing what horror is. The first war was
\nperhaps worse than the second. The second was so atrocious that all was
\nlost…But the first, oh! I don’t know…The last months I spent in <\/span>
\nParis<\/span> were truly
\nfantastic. And it can’t be told. The life in the trenches, for example, is something
\nthat cannot be told. The new generations do not know…But, you see, the
\nchildren born now will not even know if this was true, all these horrors which
\nare related to them. What happened in the conquered countries, in <\/span>Czechoslovakia<\/span>, in <\/span>Poland<\/span>, in <\/span>France<\/span> \u2013 the frightful
\nthings, unbelievable, unthinkable, which took place \u2013 unless one has been very
\nclose by, has seen, one cannot believe it. It was…I was saying the other day
\nthat the vital world is a world of horrors; well, all the horrors of the vital
\nworld had descended upon earth, and upon earth they are still more horrible
\nthan in the vital world, because in the vital world, if you have an inner
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 303<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

power, if you have
\nthe knowledge, if you have strength, you act upon them \u2013 you act, you can
\nsubdue them, you can show yourself stronger. But all your knowledge, all your
\npower, all your strength is nothing in this material world when you are
\nsubjected to the horrors of a war. And this acts in the terrestrial atmosphere
\nin such a way that it is very, very difficult to efface it. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Naturally, men are always very anxious to
\nforget. There are already those who have begun to say, \u201cAre you quite sure it
\nwas like that?\u201d But those who have gone through that, do not want it to be
\nforgotten; so the places of torture, massacre \u2013 hideous places which go beyond
\nall the worst the human imagination can conceive \u2013 some of these places have
\nbeen preserved. You can go and visit the torture-chambers the Germans built in <\/span>
\nParis<\/span>, and they will
\nnever be destroyed, I hope, so that those who come and say, \u201cOh! You know,
\nthese things have been exaggerated\u201d (for one does not like to know that such
\nfrightful things have happened), could be taken by the hand and told, \u201cCome and
\nsee, if you are not afraid.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This forms character. If it is taken in the
\nright way (and I think there are people who have taken it in the right way),
\nthis may lead you straight to yoga, straight. That is, one feels such a deep
\ndetachment for all things in the world, such a great need to find something
\nelse, an imperious need to find something which is truly beautiful, truly
\nfresh, truly good…then, quite naturally, this brings you to a spiritual
\naspiration. And these horrors have, as it were, divided men: there was a
\nminority which was ready and rose very high, there was a majority which was not
\nready and went down very low. These wallow in the mud at present, and hence,
\nfor the moment, one does not get out of it; and if this continues, we shall go
\ntowards another war and this time it will truly be the end of this civilisation
\nI don’t say the end of the world, because nothing can be the end of the world,
\nbut the end of this civilisation, that is to say, another will have to be
\nbuilt. You will perhaps tell me that this would
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 304<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

be very well, for
\nthis civilisation is in its decline, it is on the way to perish; but after all,
\nthere are very beautiful things in it, worthy of being preserved, and it would
\nbe a great pity if all this disappeared. But if there is another war, I can
\ntell you that all this will disappear. For men are very intelligent creatures
\nand they have found the means of destroying everything, and they will make use
\nof this, for what’s the good of spending billions to find certain bombs, if one
\nmight not use them? What is the use of discovering that one can destroy a city
\nin a few minutes, if it is not for destroying it! One wants to see the fruit of
\none’s efforts. If there is war, this is what will happen. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>There we are, I am telling you things which
\nare not very cheerful, but it is sometimes good to put a little ballast in the
\nhead to make one think.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 305<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9 April 1951 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mother reads a passage about art and yoga (Questions and Answers 1929, 28 July), then asks: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What is the relation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-04-questions-and-answers-volume-04","wpcat-124-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4397","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=4397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}