ART AND YOU

Find It, Develop It And Use It

Every one has in him something divine, something his own, a chance of perfection and strength in however small a sphere which God offers him to take or refuse. The task is to find it, develop it and use it.

Sri Aurobindo

17: 204

Genius

There is a genius within everyone of us — we don’t know it. We must find the way to make it come out — but it is there sleeping, it asks for nothing better than to manifest; we must open the door to it.

The Mother

9: 397

Artistic Faculty

It is not necessary that every man should be an artist. It is necessary that every man should have his artistic faculty developed, his taste trained, his sense of beauty and insight into form and colour and that which is expressed in form and colour, made habitually active, correct and sensitive. It is necessary that those who create, whether in great things or small, whether in the unusual masterpieces of art and genius or in the small common things of use that surround a man’s daily life, should be habituated to produce and the nation habituated to expect the beautiful in preference to the ugly, the noble in preference to the vulgar, the fine in preference to the crude, the harmonious in preference to the gaudy. A nation surrounded daily by the beautiful, noble, fine and harmonious becomes that which it is habituated to contemplate and realises the fullness of the expanding Spirit in itself.

Sri Aurobindo

17: 251

Aesthetic

Sweet Mother, what is an aesthetic conscience?

It is the consciousness of beauty. Aesthetic means that which concerns beauty, art. There are people, for example, who move around in life and see landscapes, see people and things and have absolutely no sense of whether it is beautiful or not; and into the bargain, it makes no difference at all to them. They look at the sky, see whether there are any clouds, whether it will rain or be clear, for instance; or whether the sun is hot or the wind cold. But there are others --- when they raise their eyes and look at a beautiful sky, it gives them pleasure, they say, “Oh! it is fine today, the sunrise is lovely today, the sunset is beautiful, the clouds have fine shapes." So, the first kind do not have an aesthetic conscience, the second have.

The Mother

7: 181

Curve And Straight Line

Keshav : … Can you tell me why a curve is considered more beautiful than a straight line?

Wilson : No, except that the effect is more pleasing.

Keshav : Ah yes, but why should it be more pleasing?

Wilson : I cannot tell.

Keshav : I will tell you. It is because a curve possesses that variety which is the soul of proportion. It rises, swells and falls with an exact propriety --- it is at once various and regular as rolling water; while the stiff monotony of a straight line disgusts the soul by its meaningless rigidity and want of proportion. On the other hand a system of similar curves, unless very delicately managed, cannot possibly suggest the idea of beauty: and that is because there is no proportion, for proportion, I would impress upon you, consists in a regular variety. And thus a straight line, tho’ in itself ugly, can be very beautiful if properly combined with curves….

Sri Aurobindo

3:16

Simple Combination Of Lines

Man becomes God, and all human activity reaches its highest and noblest when it succeeds in bringing body, heart and mind into touch with spirit. Art can express eternal truth, it is not limited to the expression of form and appearance. So wonderfully has God made the world that a man using a simple combination of lines, an unpretentious harmony of colours, can raise this apparently insignificant medium to suggest absolute and profound truths with a perfection which language labours with difficulty to reach. What Nature is, what God is, what man is can be triumphantly revealed in stone or on canvas.

Sri Aurobindo

17:249

Appreciation Of Beauty

It is like the artist, you know, who trains his eyes to appreciate forms and colors, lines, composition of things, the harmony found in physical nature; it is not at all through desire that he does this, it is through taste, culture, the development of the sense of sight and the appreciation of beauty. And usually artists who are real artists and love their art and live in the sense of beauty, seeking beauty, are people who don’t have many desires. They live in the sense of growth not only visual, but of the appreciation of beauty. There is a great difference between this and people who live by their impulses and desires. That’s altogether something else.


The Mother

7: 58

True Art

Beauty is the joyous offering of Nature.

True art means the expression of beauty in the material world. In a world wholly converted, that is to say, expressing integrally the divine reality, art must serve as the revealer and teacher of this divine beauty in life.

The Mother

12: 234

Imagination

What is the function, the use of the imagination?

If one knows how to use it, as I said, one can create for oneself his own inner and outer life; one can build his own existence with his imagination, if one knows how to use it and has a power. In fact it is an elementary way of creating, of forming things in the world. I have always felt that if one didn't have the capacity of imagination he would not make any progress. Your imagination always goes ahead of your life. When you think of yourself, usually you imagine what you want to be, don't you, and this goes ahead, then you follow, then it continues to go ahead and you follow. Imagination opens for you the path of realisation. People who are not imaginative — it is very difficult to make them move; they see just what is there before their nose, they feel just what they are moment by moment and they cannot go Foreword because they are clamped by the immediate thing.

The Mother

7: 233

Beauty

In the first case, I believe I have already said often enough and repeated that in the physical world, of all things it is beauty which best expresses the Divine. The physical world is the world of form, and the perfection of form is beauty. So I think it is not necessary to go over all that again. And once we admit this, that in the physical world beauty is the best and closest expression of the Divine, it is natural to speak of it as a “priestess", who interprets, expresses, manifests the Eternal. Its true role is to put the whole of manifested nature into contact with the Eternal through the perfection of form, harmony, and through a sense of the ideal which raises you towards something higher. So I think this justifies the word “priesthood" and explains and answers the question

The Mother

8: 216

Inspiration

For what is most important is the inspiration, in everything that one does; in all human creations the most important thing is inspiration.

The Mother

5:70

The Beauty Of…

Let beauty be your constant ideal.

The beauty of the soul

The beauty of sentiments

The beauty of thoughts

The beauty of the action

The beauty in the work

so that nothing comes out of your hands which is not an expression of pure and harmonious beauty.

And the Divine Help shall always be with you.

The Mother

12: 234

See Artistically

The consciousness must grow in light and sincerity and the eyes must learn to see artistically.

The Mother

12: 238

Images

In truth, images are much more expressive than words.

The Mother

10: 239

Art's Service

If Art's service is but to imitate Nature, then burn all the picture galleries and let us have instead photographic studios. It is because Art reveals what Nature hides that a small picture is worth more than all the jewels of the millionaires and the treasures of the princes.

*

If you only imitate visible Nature, you will perpetrate either a corpse, a dead sketch or a monstrosity; Truth lives in that which goes behind and beyond the visible and sensible.

Sri Aurobindo

17:95


Art And Beauty

May we ask X [an artist] to work on activities which are non-artistic?

All and everything can be artistic if it is done in an artistic spirit.

The Mother

15: 251

“Always better."

The future belongs to those who want to progress.

Blessings to those whose motto is: “Always better."

In the physical the Divine manifests as Beauty.

The Mother

13: 240


Discipline

Mother, I want a discipline.

This is quite excellent and I approve of it. Without outer and inner discipline, one can achieve nothing in life, either spiritually or materially. All those who have been able to create something beautiful or useful have always been persons who have known how to discipline themselves.

Always with you in all love.

The Mother

16: 123


The Beauty Of The Future

Sri Aurobindo came to tell the world of the beauty of the future that must be realised.

He came to give not a hope but a certitude of the splendour towards which the world moves. The world is not an unfortunate accident, it is a marvel which moves towards its expression.

The world needs the certitude of the beauty of the future. And Sri Aurobindo has given that assurance.

The Mother

13: 15


Display

Let us be always very careful to avoid all that might encourage in us the spirit of display.

The Mother

15: 272

Six Senses

... the first business of the educationist is to develop in the child the right use of the six senses; to see that they are not stunted or injured by disuse, but trained by the child himself under the teacher’s direction to that perfect accuracy and keen subtle sensitiveness of which they are capable. In addition, whatever assistance can be gained by the organs of action, should be thoroughly employed. The hand, for instance, should be trained to reproduce what the eye sees and the mind senses. The speech should be trained to a perfect expression of the knowledge which the whole antahkarana possesses.

Sri Aurobindo

17:206


Harmony and Beauty

Harmony and beauty of the mind and soul, harmony and beauty of the thoughts and feelings, harmony and beauty in every outward act and movement, harmony and beauty of the life and surroundings, this is the demand of Mahalakshmi …. Where love and beauty are not or are reluctant to be born, she does not come….

Sri Aurobindo

25:31


Beautiful and Useful

There is a tendency in modern times to depreciate the value of the beautiful and overstress the value of the useful,….

Sri Aurobindo

17:231

Material of the Artist

Whatever is capable of being manifested as Beauty is the material of the artist.

Sri Aurobindo

Form

We have now throughout the world a search, an attempt on various lines to discover some principle of significant form in Art which shall escape from the obvious and external and combine delight with profundity, the power of a more searching knowledge with the depth of suggestion, emotion and ecstasy which are the very breath of aesthetic creation. The search has led to many extravagances and cannot be said to have been as yet successful, but it may be regarded as a sure sign and precursor of a new and greater age of human achievement.

Sri Aurobindo

17:275

Help Man Upward

….the aesthetic faculties entering into the enjoyment of the world and the satisfaction of the vital instincts, the love of the beautiful in men and women, in food, in things, in articles of use and articles of pleasure, have done more than anything else to raise man from the beast, to refine and purge his passions, to ennoble his emotions and to lead him up through the heart and the imagination to the state of the intellectual man. That which has helped man upward, must be preserved in order that he may not sink below the level he has attained.

Sri Aurobindo

17:236

Raise And Purify

At a certain stage of human development the aesthetic sense is of infinite value in this direction. It raises and purifies conduct by instilling a distaste for the coarse desires and passions of the savage, for the rough, uncouth and excessive in action and manner, and restraining both feeling and action by a striving after the decent, the beautiful, ….

Sri Aurobindo

17:238

Morality

A still more important and indispensable activity of the sense of beauty is the powerful help it has given to the formation of morality.

Sri Aurobindo

17:240

Value

There is a tendency in modern times to depreciate the value of the beautiful and overstress the value of the useful,….

Sri Aurobindo

17:231


Necessary

….there is a tendency to ignore Art and poetry as mere refinements, luxuries of the rich and leisurely rather than things that are necessary to the mass of men or useful to life.

Sri Aurobindo

17:236

Art Galleries

Art galleries cannot be brought into every home, but, if all the appointments of our life and furniture of our homes are things of taste and beauty, it is inevitable that the habits, thoughts and feelings of the people should be raised, ennobled, harmonized, made more sweet and dignified.

Sri Aurobindo

17:245