Painting Painting, Music, Dance and Yoga   Yoga and the Arts   In the new creation would there not be great musicians, painters, poets, athletes etc. created from the Ashram?   All kinds that are needed for the work or the manifestation would, I suppose, come. 24 May 1933   Painting and Sadhana   Painting also is sadhana; so it is perfectly possible to make them one. It is a matter of dedicating the painting and feeling the force that makes you paint as the Mother's force. 4 September 1935   *   Of course everybody is here for Yoga and not for painting. Painting or any other activity has to be m

Substance, Style, Diction   Form and Substance   On the general question [of rhythm vs. substance] the truth seems to me to be very simple. It may be quite true that fine or telling rhythms without substance (substance of idea, suggestion, feeling) are hardly poetry at all, even if they make good verse. But that is no ground for belittling beauty or excellence of form or ignoring its supreme importance for poetic perfection. Poetry is after all an art and a poet ought to be an artist of word and rhythm, even though, necessarily, like other artists, he must also be something more than that, even much more. I hold therefore that harshness and roughne

  Note on the Texts     Note on the Texts   LETTERS ON POETRY AND ART includes most of the letters on poetry, literature, art and aesthetics that Sri Aurobindo wrote between 1929 and 1950. During these years he was living in retirement in his ashram in Pondicherry and had no direct contact with others, but he carried on an enormous correspondence with the members of his ashram as well as outsiders. Most of the letters he wrote at this time were concerned with the recipients' practice of yoga and day-to-day life. But a significant number were about literary and artistic matters. The most important of such letters are publish

Comments on Some Remarks by a Critic   You have asked me to comment on your friend Mendonca's comments on my poetry and especially on Savitri. But, first of all, it is not usual for a poet to criticise the criticisms of his critics though a few perhaps have done so; the poet writes for his own satisfaction, his own delight in poetical creation or to express himself and he leaves his work for the world, and rather for posterity than for the contemporary world, to recognise or to ignore, to judge and value according to its perception or its pleasure. As for the contemporary world he might be said rather to throw his poem in its face and leave it to res

Part Two On His Own and Others' Poetry       Section One   On His Poetry and Poetic Method   Inspiration, Effort, Development   Writing and Rewriting   It will be valuable knowledge to learn how Six Poems were written and the three recent sonnets and how Savitri is being led forward to its consummation.   There is no invariable how ―except that I receive from above my head and receive changes and corrections from above without any initiation by myself or labour of the brain. Even if I change a hundred times, the mind does not work at that, it only receives. Formerly it used n

Section Four   Literature, Art, Music and the Practice of Yoga     Literature and Yoga   Poetry and Sadhana   Can one gain as much profit (I mean spiritually) from writing poems, etc. as from devoting one's time to sadhana ―meditation, etc. In other words, can literary activity be taken as part of one's sadhana?   Any activity can be taken as part of the sadhana if it is offered to the Divine or done with the consciousness or faith that it is done by the Divine Power. That is the important point. 29 March 1934   *   It is obvious that poetry cannot be a

Section Three Section Three   Practical Guidance for Aspiring Writers   Guidance in Writing Poetry   Three Essentials for Writing Poetry   I have gone through your poems. For poetry three things are necessary. First, there must be emotional sincerity and poetical feeling and this your poems show that you possess. Next, a mastery over language and a faculty of rhythm perfected by a knowledge of the technique of poetic and rhythmic expression; here the technique is imperfect, some faculty is there but in the rough and there is not yet an original and native style. Finally, there must be the power of inspiratio

Appreciation of the Arts in General   Poetic and Artistic Value and Popular Appeal   I do not know why your correspondent puts so much value on general understanding and acceptance. Really it is only the few that can be trusted to discern the true value of things in poetry and art and if the "general" run accept it is usually because acceptance is sooner or later imposed or induced in their minds at first by the authority of the few and afterwards by the verdict of Time. There are exceptions of course of a wide spontaneous acceptance because something that is really good happens to meet a taste or a demand in the general mind of t

Section Three    Poetic Technique   Technique, Inspiration, Artistry   Inspiration and Technique   You do not need at all to afflict your inspiration by studying metrical technique ―you have all the technique you need, within you. I have never studied prosody myself ―in English, at least, ―what I know I know by reading and writing and following my ear and using my intelligence. If one is interested in the technical study of prosody for its own sake, that is another matter ―but it is not at all indispensable. 28 April 1934    Knowledge of Technique and Intuitive Cognition   As for the technique, there

Section Two   On the Visual Arts         General Remarks on the Visual Arts   Art and Nature   There is no incompatibility between the inspiration from within and the dependence on Nature. The essence of the inspiration always comes from within but the forms of expression are based on Nature though developed and modified by the selective or interpretative sight of the artist. 6 September 1933 *   A painter can certainly bring home the aspects of the sea and the beauty of Nature, but he does it as an artist, in the way of Art. He does it by representation and suggestion, not by