{"id":4620,"date":"2013-07-13T01:57:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=4620"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:57:23","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:57:23","slug":"199-thr-mother-on-art-vol-04-paintings-and-drawings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/02-works-of-the-mother\/02other-editions\/04-paintings-and-drawings\/199-thr-mother-on-art-vol-04-paintings-and-drawings","title":{"rendered":"-199_Thr Mother on Art.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n


\n\t\tPaintings
\n & Drawings<\/font><\/b> <\/font>
\n\t\tBy The
\n Mother<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tThe
\n\tMother On Art<\/font><\/p>\n\n\n
\n


\nIn her talks
\nand in letters to disciples, the Mother said many things about art, artists and
\nthe expression of beauty which may be of interest in connection with her own
\nartistic work. A selection of this material is presented below.<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tLearning Art<\/font><\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nTo learn
\nmeans months and months of study before any picture can be; studies from nature,
\ndrawing first for a long time, painting only after. If you are ready to study
\nhard and regularly, then you can begin, otherwise it is better not to try. 1<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nYou must be
\nprepared to be unsuccessful many many times before you can truly learn. It is
\nwith the effort of many failures that you prepare a progress leading towards
\nsuccess.2<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nIt is good to
\nmake sketches from nature. It gives richness, variety and precision to the
\nexecution.3<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nYou can begin
\nto study the human figure but that from Nature, not from books.4<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nBefore doing
\na drawing you must find the proper place for the model to sit. Generally near a
\nwindow where the lights and the shadows will be frank and precise, is the best.
\nBefore starting the work, you must try several positions and choose the best.5<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nWhen you want
\nto do a certain sketch on a certain sheet of paper, you must first establish
\nroughly the whole of it keeping in view only the proportions. For a whole figure
\nit will make it easier to keep the right proportions by keeping in mind that a
\nnormal body contains 7 heads including the head itself; less makes a short man
\nand more a tall one.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nI am sending
\nyou the sketch of the man with the seven heads marked.6<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


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


\n(The
\ntechnique of "broken colour")<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nThe technique
\nis to apply the colours by dots and short lines very close to one another but
\nnot to mix; it gives a much more living effect than the mixing and expresses
\nwell the play of colours and of light . . . you can make in that way all
\npossible shades.7<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


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


\nSo-called
\nblack hair is never black. Look at it attentively and you will see that in the
\nshadows there are deep browns, deep blues and purples. The lights are pale blue
\nif the hair is very black and reddish brown if the hair is less black.8 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


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


\nThe colour of
\nthe shadows is always somewhat complementary to that of the light. The
\ncomplementary colours are: green and red, orange and blue, violet and
\nyellow\u2014and all the intermediate shades with all the possible combinations.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nThus if in
\nthe light your ground is green, in the shadow it will probably be a reddish
\nbrown\u2014if it is of some kind of golden orange the shadow will be of bluish
\npurple, and so on.9<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nArt and Consciousness<\/font><\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n


\n(To a student
\nwho was thinking of leaving the Ashram to study art in Paris)<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nI have seen
\nyour paintings\u2014they are almost perfect. But what they lack is not
\ntechnique\u2014it is consciousness. If you develop your consciousness you will
\nspontaneously discover how to express yourself. Nobody, and especially not the
\nofficial teachers, can teach you that.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nSo to leave
\nhere and go anywhere else, to any of the "Art Academies", would be to
\nleave the light and step into a pit of obscurity and unconsciousness.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nYou cannot
\nlearn to be an artist with tricks\u2014it is as if you wanted to realize the Divine
\nby imitating religious ceremonies.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nAbove all and
\nalways the most important thing is Sincerity.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nDevelop your
\ninner being\u2014find your soul, and at the same time you will find the true
\nartistic expression.10<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


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


\nThe
\nconsciousness must grow in light and sincerity and the eyes must learn to see
\nartistically.11<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


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


\nI was not
\nable to look at your paintings until today. Certainly they represent an effort,
\nand the one which is framed is pleasing to the eye. But you think too much and
\nyou do not see enough. In other words, your vision is not original, spontaneous
\nor direct, which means that your execution is still conventional and lacks
\noriginality\u2014an imitation of what others do.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nThere is,
\nbehind all things, a divine beauty, a divine harmony: it is with this that we
\nmust come into contact; it is this that we must express.12<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


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


\nThe largest
\nof the flower-paintings is the best because it is more spontaneous and free. You
\nmust feel what you paint and do it with joy.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nCopy many
\nbeautiful things, but try even more to catch the emotion, the deeper life of
\nthings.13<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nWhen a
\npainter paints a picture, if he observes himself painting the picture, the
\npicture will never be good, it will always be a kind of projection of the
\npainter’s personality; it will be without life, without force, without beauty.
\nBut if, all of a sudden, he becomes the thing he wants to express, if he becomes
\nthe brushes, the painting, the canvas, the subject, the image, the colours, the
\nvalue, the whole thing, and is entirely inside it and lives it, he will make
\nsomething magnificent.14<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nThe Power of
\nConcentration in Art and Science<\/font><\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n


\nHow is it that in people occupied with scientific studies artistic imagination
\nis lacking? Are these two things opposed to each other?<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nNot
\nnecessarily.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nIn general?<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nThey do not
\nbelong to the same domain. It is exactly as though you had what is called in
\nEnglish a "torchlight", a small beacon in your head, at the place of
\nobservation. Scientists who want to do a certain work turn the beacon in a
\nparticular way, they always put it there and the beacon remains like that: they
\nturn it towards matter, towards the details of matter. But imaginative people
\nturn it upwards, because up above there is everything, all the inspirations for
\nartistic and literary things: this comes from another domain. It comes from a
\nmuch subtler domain, much less material. So these turn upwards and want to
\nreceive the light from above. But it is the same instrument. The others turn it
\ndownwards, and it is quite simply a lack of gymnastic skill. It is the same
\ninstrument. It is the same power of a luminous ray upon something. But because
\none has made a habit of concentrating it in a certain direction, one is no
\nlonger flexible, one loses the habit of doing things differently.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nBut you can
\nat any moment do both things. When you are doing science, you turn it in one
\ndirection and when you do literature and art, you turn it in the other
\ndirection; but it is the same instrument: all depends on the orientation. If you
\nhave concentration, you can move this power of concentration from one place to
\nanother and in every case it will be effective. If you are occupied with
\nscience, you use it in a scientific way, and if you want to do art, you use it
\ninan artistic way. But it is the same instrument and it is the same power of
\nconcentration. It is simply because people don’t know this that they limit
\nthemselves. So the hinges get rusty, they don’t turn any more. Otherwise, if one
\nkeeps the habit of turning them, they continue to turn. Moreover, even from the
\nordinary point of view, it is not rare to find a scientist having as his pastime
\nsome artistic occupation\u2014and the reverse also. It is because they have
\ndiscovered that the one was not harmful to the other and that it was the same
\nfaculty which could be applied in both cases.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nEssentially,
\nfrom a general point of view, particularly from the intellectual point of view,
\nthe capacity of attention and concentration is the most important thing, the
\nthing one must work to develop. From the point of view of action (physical
\naction), it is the will: you must work to build up an unshakable will. From the
\nintellectual point of view, you must work to build up a power of concentration
\nwhich nothing can shake. And if you have both, concentration and will, you will
\nbe a genius and nothing will resist you.15<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nPainting in
\nCommunion with the Divine<\/font><\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n


\nYou have
\nsaid: "if you surrender [to the Divine] you have to give up effort, but
\nthat does not mean that you have to abandon also all willed action." But if
\none wants to do something, it means personal effort, doesn’t it? What then is
\nthe will?<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nThere is a
\ndifference between the will and this feeling of tension, effort, of counting
\nonly on oneself, having recourse to oneself alone which personal effort means;
\nthis kind of tension, of something very acute and at times very painful; you
\ncount only on yourself and you have the feeling that if you do not make an
\neffort at every minute, all will be lost. That is personal effort.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nBut the will
\nis something altogether different. It is the capacity to concentrate on
\neverything one does, to do it as best one can and not stop doing it unless one
\nreceives a very precise intimation that it is finished. It is difficult to
\nexplain to you. But suppose, for example, that through a combination of
\ncircumstances a work comes into your hands. Take an artist who has in one way or
\nanother received an inspiration and decided to paint a picture. He knows very
\nwell that if he has no inspiration and is not sustained by forces other than
\nhis own, he will do nothing much. It will look more like a daub than a painting.
\nHe knows this. But it has been settled, the painting is to be done; there may be
\nmany reasons for it, but the painting is to be done. Then if he had the passive
\nattitude, well, he would get out his palette, his colours, his brushes, his
\ncanvas and then sit down in front of them and say to the Divine: "Now you
\nare going to paint." But the Divine does not do things that way. The
\npainter himself must take up everything and arrange everything, concentrate on
\nhis subject, find the forms, the colours that will express it and put his whole
\nwill for a more and more perfect execution. His will must be there all the time.
\nBut he will keep the sense that he must be open to the inspiration, he will not
\nforget <\/font> <\/span> that in spite
\nof all his knowledge of technique, in spite of the care he takes to arrange,
\norganise and prepare his colours and the forms of his design, in spite of all
\nthat, if he has no inspiration, it will be one picture among a million others
\nand it will not be very interesting. He does not forget. He attempts, he tries
\nto see, to feel what he wants his painting to express and in what way it should
\nbe expressed. He has his colours, he has his brushes, he has his model, he has
\nmade his sketch which he will enlarge and make into a picture, he calls his
\ninspiration. There are even some who manage to have a clear, precise vision of
\nwhat is to be done. But then, day after day, hour after hour, they have this
\nwill<\/span> to work, to
\nstudy, to do with care all that must be done until they reproduce as perfectly
\nas they can the first inspiration…. That person has worked for the Divine, in
\ncommunion with Him, but not in a passive way, not with a passive surrender; it
\nis with an active surrender, a dynamic will. The result generally is something
\nvery good. Well, the example of the painter is interesting, because a painter
\nwho is truly an artist is able to see what he is going to do, he is able to
\nconnect himself to the divine Power that is beyond expression and inspires all
\nexpression. For the poet, the writer, it is the same thing and for all people
\nwho do something, it is the same.16<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n


\nArt and Yoga<\/font><\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n


\nIs it
\npossible for a Yogi to become an artist or can an artist be a Yogi? What is the <\/font>
\n<\/span>
\nrelation of
\nArt to Yoga?<\/span><\/font><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n


\nThe two are
\nnot so antagonistic as you seem to think. There is nothing to prevent a Yogi
\nfrom being an artist or an artist from being a Yogi. But when you are in Yoga,
\nthere is a profound change in the values of things, of Art as of everything
\nelse; you begin to look at Art from a very different standpoint. It is no longer
\nthe one supreme all-engrossing thing for you, no longer an end in itself. Art is
\na means, not an end; it is a means of expression. And the artist then ceases too
\nto believe that the whole world turns round what he is doing or that his work is
\nthe most important thing that has ever been done. His personality counts no
\nlonger; he is an agent, a channel, his art a means of expressing his relations
\nwith the Divine. He uses it for that purpose as he might have used any other
\nmeans that were part of the powers of his nature.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nBut does an
\nartist feel at all any impulse to create once he takes up Yoga?<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n


\nWhy should he
\nnot have the impulse? He can express his relation with the Divine in the way of
\nhis art, exactly as he would in any other. If you want art to be the true and
\nhighest art, it must be the expression of a divine world brought down into this
\nmaterial world. All true artists have some feeling of this kind, some sense that
\nthey are intermediaries between a higher world and this physical existence. If
\nyou consider it in this light. Art is not very different from Yoga. But most
\noften the artist has only an indefinite feeling, he has not the knowledge\u2026.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nThere is one
\nway in which Yoga may stop the artist’s productive impulse. If the origin of his
\nart is in the vital world, once he becomes a Yogi he will lose his inspiration
\nor, rather, the source from which his inspiration used to come will inspire him
\nno more, for then the vital world appears in its true light; it puts on its true
\nvalue, and that value is very relative. Most of those who call themselves
\nartists draw their inspiration from the vital world only; and it carries in it
\nno high or great significance. But when a true artist, one who looks for his
\ncreative source to a higher world, turns to Yoga, he will find that his
\ninspiration becomes more direct and powerful and his expression clearer and
\ndeeper. Of those who possess a true value the power of Yoga will increase the
\nvalue, but from one who has only some false appearance of art even that
\nappearance will vanish or else lose its appeal. To one earnest in Yoga, the
\nfirst simple truth that strikes his opening vision is that what he does is a
\nvery relative thing in comparison with the universal manifestation, the
\nuniversal movement. But an artist is usually vain and looks on himself as a
\nhighly important personage, a kind of demigod in the human world. Many artists
\nsay that if they did not believe what they do to be of a supreme importance,
\nthey would not be able to <\/font> <\/span> do it. But I
\nhave known some whose inspiration was from a higher world and yet they did not
\nbelieve that what they did was of so immense an importance. That is nearer the
\nspirit of true art. If a man is truly led to express himself in art, it is the
\nway’ the Divine has chosen to manifest in him, and then by Yoga his art will
\ngain and not lose. . . .<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n


\nThere are
\nsome who are not officially Yogis, they are not gums and have no disciples; the
\nworld does not know what they do; they are not anxious for fame and do not
\nattract to themselves the attention of men; but they have the higher
\nconsciousness, are in touch with a Divine Power, and when they create they
\ncreate from there. The best paintings in India and much of the best statuary and
\narchitecture were done by Buddhist monks who passed their lives in spiritual
\ncontemplation and practice; they did supreme artistic work, but did not care to
\nleave their names to posterity. The chief reason why Yogis are not <\/font>
\n<\/span>
\nusually known
\nby their art is that they do not consider their art-expression as the most
\nimportant part of their life and do not put so much time and energy into it as a
\nmere artist. And what they do does not always reach the public. How many there
\nare who have done great things and not published them to the world! . . .<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n


\nArt is
\nnothing less in its fundamental truth than the aspect of beauty of the Divine
\nmanifestation. Perhaps, looking from this standpoint, there will be found very
\nfew true artists; but still there are some and these can very well be considered
\nas Yogis. For like a Yogi an artist goes into deep contemplation to await and
\nreceive his inspiration. To create something truly beautiful he has first to see
\nit within, to realise it as a whole in his inner consciousness; only when so
\nfound, seen, held within, can he execute it outwardly; he creates according to
\nthis greater inner vision. This too is a kind of yogic discipline, for <\/font>
\n<\/span>
\nby it he
\nenters into intimate communion with the inner worlds.17<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n


\n"The
\nYogin’s aim in the Arts should not be a mere aesthetic, mental or vital
\ngratification, but, seeing the Divine everywhere, worshipping it with a
\nrevelation of the meaning of its works, to express that One Divine in gods and
\nmen and creatures and objects."<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nHow can we
\n"express that One Divine"?<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n


\nIt depends on
\nthe subject one wants to express: gods, men or things.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nWhen one
\npaints a picture or composes music or writes poetry, each one has his own way of
\nexpressing himself. Every painter, every musician, every poet, every sculptor
\nhas or ought to have a unique, personal contact with the Divine, and through the
\nwork which is his specialty, the art he has mastered, he must express this
\ncontact in his own way, with his own words, his own colours. Instead of copying
\nthe outer forms of Nature, he takes these forms as the covering of something
\nelse, of his relation with the realities which are behind, deeper, and he tries
\nto make them express that. Instead of merely imitating what he sees, he tries to
\nmake them speak of what is behind them, and this is what makes the difference
\nbetween a living art and just a flat copy of Nature.18<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n


\nThe Expression of Beauty<\/font><\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n


\nPainting is
\nnot done to copy Nature, but to express an impression, a feeling, an emotion
\nthat we experience on seeing the beauty of Nature. It is this that is
\ninteresting and it is this that has to be expressed. . . . 19<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


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


\nIn the
\nphysical world, of all things it is beauty that expresses best the Divine. The
\nphysical world is the world of form and the perfection of form is beauty. Beauty
\ninterprets, expresses, manifests the Eternal. Its role is to put all manifested
\nnature in contact with the Eternal through the perfection of form, through
\nharmony and a sense of the Ideal which uplifts and leads towards something
\nhigher.20<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nTrue art
\nmeans the expression of beauty in the material world. In a work wholly
\nconverted, that is to say, expressing integrally the divine reality, art must
\nserve as the revealer and teacher of this divine beauty in life.21<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


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


\nThere is a
\ndomain far above the mind which we could call the world of Harmony and, if you
\ncan reach there, you will find the root of all harmony that has been manifested
\nin whatever form upon earth. . . .<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nIf by Yoga
\nyou are capable of reaching this source of all art, then you are master, if you
\nwill, of all the arts. Those that may have gone there before, found it perhaps
\nhappier, more pleasant or full of a rapturous ease to remain and enjoy the
\nBeauty and the Delight that are there, not manifesting it, not embodying it upon
\nearth. But this abstention is not all the truth nor the true truth of Yoga; it
\nis rather a deformation, a diminution of the dynamic freedom of Yoga by the more
\nnegative spirit of Sannyasa. The will of the Divine is to manifest, not to
\nremain altogether withdrawn in inactivity and an absolute silence; if the Divine
\nConsciousness were really an inaction of unmanifesting bliss, there would never
\nhave been any creation.22<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nModern Art and the Art of the Future<\/font><\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n


\nModern art is
\nan experiment, still very clumsy, to express something other than the simple
\nphysical appearance. The idea is good\u2014but naturally the value of the
\nexpression depends entirely on the value of that which wants to express
\nitself.23<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


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


\nThe story
\nbegan with… the man who used to do still-lifes and whose plates were never
\nround… Cezanne! It was he who began it; he said that if you made round plates
\nit was not living, that never, when one looks spontaneously a things, does one
\nsee plates as round: one sees them like this (gesture). I don’t know why, but he
\nsaid that it is only the mind that makes us see plates as round, because one
\nknows they are round, otherwise one does not see them round. It is he who
\nbegan…. He painted a still-life which was truly a very beautiful thing, note
\nthat; a very beautiful thing, with a truly striking impression of colour and
\nform (I could show you reproductions one day, I must have them, but they are not
\ncolour reproductions unfortunately; the beauty is especially in the colour).
\nBut, of course, his plate was not round. He had friends who told him just this,
\n"But after all, why don’t you make your plate round?" He replied,
\n"My deal fellow, you are altogether mental, you are not an artist, it is
\nbecause you think that you make your plates round: if you only see, you will do
\nit like this" (gesture). It is in accordance with the impression that the
\nplate ought to be painted; it gives you an impact, you translate the impact, and
\nit is this which is truly artistic. This is how modern art began. And note that
\nhe was right. His plates were not round, but he was right in principle.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nWhat has made
\nart what it is, do you want me to tell you, psychologically? It 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 dreadful. All the
\nfirst attempts of photography until… not very long ago, were like that. It is
\nabout fifty years ago that it became tolerable, and now with gradual improvement
\nit has become something good; but it must be said that the process is absolutely
\ndifferent. In those days, when your portrait was taken, you sat in a comfortable
\nchair, you had to sit leaning nicely and facing an enormous thing with a black
\ncloth, which opened like this towards you. And the man ordered, "Don’t
\nmove!" That was the end of the old painting. When the painter made
\nsomething life-like, a life-like portrait, his friends said, "Why <\/font>
\n<\/span>
\nnow, this is
\nphotography!"<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n


\nIt must be
\nsaid that the art of the end of the last century, the art of the Second Empire,
\nwas bad. It was an age of businessmen, above all an age of bankers, of
\nfinanciers, and taste, upon my word, had sunk very low. I don’t think
\nbusinessmen are people who are necessarily very competent in art, but when they
\nwanted their portrait, they wanted a likeness! One could not leave out the least
\ndetail, it was quite comic: "But you know I have a little wrinkle there,
\ndon’t forget to put it in!" and the lady who said, "You know, you must
\nmake my shoulders quite round", and so on. So the artists made portraits
\nwhich indeed verged on photography. They were flat, cold, without soul and
\nwithout vision. I can name a number of artists of that period, it was truly a
\nshame for art. This lasted till towards the end of the last century, till about
\n1875. Afterwards, there started the reaction. Then there was an entire very
\nbeautiful period (I don’t say this because I myself was painting) but all the
\nartists I knew at that time were truly artists, they were serious and did
\nadmirable things which have remained admirable. It was the period of the
\nimpressionists; it was the period of Manet, it was a beautiful period, they did
\nbeautiful things. But people tire of beautiful things as they tire of bad ones.
\nSo there were those who wanted to found the "Salon d’Autornne". They
\nwanted to surpass the others, to go more towards the new, towards the truly
\nanti-photographic. And my goodness, they went a little beyond the limit
\n(according to my taste). They began to depreciate Rembrandt\u2014Rembrandt was a
\ndauber, Titian was a dauber, all the great painters of the Italian Renaissance
\nwere daubers. You were not to pronounce the name of Raphael, it was a shame. And
\nall the great age of the Italian Renaissance Was "not worth very
\nmuch"; even the works of Leonardo da Vinci; "You know, you must take
\nthem or leave them." Then they went a little further; they wanted something
\nentirely new, they <\/font> <\/span> became
\nextravagant. . . .<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nThis is the
\nhistory of art as I knew it.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nNow, to tell
\nyou the truth, we are on the ascending curve again. Truly, I think we have gone
\ndown to the depths of incoherence, absurdity, nastiness- of the taste for the
\nsordid and ugly, the dirty, the outrageous. We have gone, I believe, to the very
\nbottom.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nAre we really
\ngoing up again?<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nI 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 there
\nare signs that we are going up again. You will see, fifty years hence we shall
\nperhaps have beautiful things to see. I felt this some days ago, that truly we
\nhad come to the end of the descending curve\u2014we are still very low down, but
\nare beginning to climb up. There is a kind of anguish and there is still a
\ncomplete lack of understanding of what beauty can and should be, but one finds
\nan aspiration towards something which would not be sordidly <\/font> <\/span>
\nmaterial. For
\na time art had wanted to wallow in the mire, to be what they called
\n"realistic". They had chosen as "real" what was most
\nrepulsive in the world, most ugly: all the deformities, all the filth, all the
\nugliness, all the horrors, all the incoherences of colour and form; well, I
\nbelieve this is behind us now. I had this feeling very strongly these last few
\ndays (not through seeing pictures, for we do not have a chance to see much here,
\nbut by "sensing the atmosphere"). And even in the reproductions we are
\nshown, there is some aspiration towards something which would be a little
\nhigher. It will need about fifty years; then… Unless there is another war,
\nanother catastrophe; because certainly, to a large extent, what is responsible
\nfor this taste for the sordid are the wars and the horrors of war. People are
\ncompelled to put aside all refined sensibility, the love of harmony, the need
\nfor beauty, to be able to undergo all that; otherwise, I believe, they would
\nreally have died of horror.24<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


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


\n Why are
\ntoday’s painters not so good as those of the days of Leonardo da Vinci?<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nBecause human
\nevolution goes in spirals. I have explained this. I said that art had become
\nsomething altogether mercantile, obscure and ignorant, from the beginning of the
\nlast century till its middle. It had become something very commercial and quite
\nremote from the true sense of art. And so, naturally, the artistic spirit does
\nnot come. It followed bad forms, yet it tried to manifest to counteract the
\ndegradation of taste which prevailed. But naturally, as with every movement of
\nNature in man, some having gone to one extreme, others went to the other
\nextreme; and as these made a sort of servile copy of life- not even that, in
\nthose days it was called "a photographic view" of things, but now one
\ncan no longer say that, for photography has progressed so much that it would be
\ndoing it an injustice to say this, wouldn’t it? Photography has become artistic;
\nso a picture cannot be criticised by calling it photographic; nor can one call
\nit "realistic" any longer, for there is a realistic painting which is
\nnot at all like that\u2014but it was conventional, artificial and without any true
\nlife, so the reaction was to the very opposite, and naturally to another
\nabsurdity: "art" was no longer to express physical life but mental
\nlife or vital life. And so came all the schools, like the Cubists and others,
\nwho created from their head. But in art it is not the head that dominates, it is
\nthe feeling for beauty. And they produced absurd and ridiculous and frightful
\nthings. Now they have gone further still, but that, that is due to the
\nwars\u2014with every war there descends upon earth a world in decomposition which
\nproduces a sort of chaos. And some, of course, find all this very beautiful and
\nadmire it very much.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nI understand
\nwhat they want to do, I understand it very well, but I cannot say that I find
\nthey do it well. All I can say is that they are trying.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nBut it is
\nperhaps (with all its horror, from a certain point of view), it is perhaps
\nbetter than what was produced in that age of extreme and practical philistinism:
\nthe Victorian age or in France the Second Empire. So, one starts from a point
\nwhere there was a harmony and describes a curve, and with this curve one goes
\ncompletely out of this harmony and may enter into a total darkness; and then one
\nclimbs up, and when one finds oneself in line with the old realisation of art,
\none becomes aware of the truth there was in this realisation, but with the
\nnecessity of expressing something more complete and more conscious. But in
\ndescribing the circle one forgets that art is the expression of forms and one
\ntries to express ideas and feelings with a minimum of forms. That gives what we
\nhave, what you may see. . . . But if one goes a little farther still, 
\n<\/span>this  <\/span>idea 
\n<\/span>and  <\/span>these 
\n<\/span>feelings  <\/span>they wish 
\n<\/span>to express  <\/span>and 
\n<\/span>express  <\/span>very clumsily\u2014if
\none returns to the same point of the spirit (only a little higher), one will
\ndiscover that it is the embryo of a new art which will be an art of beauty and
\nwill express not only material life but will also try to express its soul.25<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


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

\n <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n. . . At one
\ntime, when I looked at the paintings of Rembrandt, the paintings of Titian or
\nTintoretto, the paintings of Renoir, the paintings of Monet, I felt a great
\naesthetic joy. This aesthetic joy I don’t feel any more. I have progressed,
\nbecause I follow the whole movement of terrestrial evolution; therefore, I have
\nhad to overpass that cycle, I have arrived at another; and that one seems to me
\nempty of aesthetic joy. From the point of view of reason one may dispute this,
\nspeak of all that is beautiful and well done; all that is another matter. But
\nthis subtle something which is the true aesthetic joy is gone, I don’t <\/font>
\n<\/span>
\nfeel it any
\nmore. Of course, I am a hundred miles away from having it when I look at the
\nthings they are doing now. But still it is something which is behind this that
\nhas made the other disappear. So perhaps by making just a little effort towards
\nthe future, we are going to be able to find the formula of the new beauty. That
\nwould be interesting.<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n


\nIt
\n is quite recently that this impression has come to me; it is not old. I have
\n tried with the most perfect goodwill, by abolishing all kinds of preferences,
\n preconceived ideas, habits, past tastes, all that; all that eliminated, I look
\n at their pictures and I don’t succeed in getting any pleasure; it doesn’t give
\n me any, sometimes it gives me a disgust, but above all the impression of something
\n that is not true, a painful impression of insincerity. But then quite recently,
\n I suddenly felt this, this sensation of something very new, something of the
\n future pushing, pushing, trying to manifest, trying to express itself and not
\n succeeding, but something that will be a tremendous progress over all that has
\n been felt and expressed before; and then, at the same time was born this movement
\n of consciousness which turns towards this new thing and wants to grasp it. This
\n will perhaps be interesting.26 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n
\n <\/a><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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

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