Karmayogi

Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 44

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of the new psychology have mile an obsolete science of the ol-1. In all the arta, the extreme develop.vities, intill and observing faculties has almost extinguished orestive power. Science has corrupted art, The chief characteristic of the bulk of until the aims of both are confused. And while on the one hand wientific materialism' modoru Europan art-the art of the Salons and is already out of date, the old religious formulas the Royal Academy is a great development of are more and mare rapidly losing their hold. imitative power. The exhibition walls are hung with tales in still life-st lies of landscapes, on the bust and most sincere ninds. Even the trass and animals and human brings in accepted formulae of conventional morality are ostags in of situation and moved by every questioned by the most advanced thinkers, In every wort every department of life there is evidence of kind of feeling. Much of this is the expression comparatively new appreciation of nature in all her varying moods, an appreciation which (though characteristic of early Keltic literature) in modern times found just expression only in the Romantic Revival of the early xixth century, representing a healthy reaction. from the false sentiment of the preceding centu century. At the same time, the love of nature all her mods hus incrossed by compensatory tendency in proportion as human life has boon divorced from nature. It is in the absence of nature, in the artificial life of towns, that we nel pictures o nature's outward form
art
the culmination of a particular line of development, and the imminent necessity of some new synthesis.
The inwardas of these circumstances has been bars in various ways. England with a blindness characteristic of a youthful ad 1 mstsrially sucessful country has conceived that it has buen hor nision not merely to awaken and units, but tax In la. Daly very gradually is Eagined re the truth of Sir Thom w Manra's declarat, that if civilization were to bemo to commerce between the two countries, would soon 2b heavily in debt. Tare is alterly aban lant evidna of that permeation of western thought by Indian philosophy which Schopenhauer so clearly foremaw. The East has fideed revealed a new world to the West which will ha the inspiration of a Renaissance, more profound and far-reaching that which resulted from the re-discovery Feanized from covery of the classic world of the west. It is the irony fate that while the outward and visible Anglicisation of the East is only too apparent,
to call up within the memory of far-off peace and beauty. No one in the constant presence of his mistress needs at the same time her picture. It is only in absence that a picture desired and even so, perhaps he is the better lover who needs no picture in concrete form having a more perfect memory picture in his heart. The modern habit of dotting the walls of a house with framed pictures of beautiful things was unknown in the days when all the Accessories of life itself were beautiful,
this inward and subtle Indianisation of the West hun, as it were, stolen a march in the night, and already there are groups of western thinkers whose purposes and principles are. more truly Indian than are those of the average English-educated Indian of today. The Wester no longer afford to ignore the wisdom of the Est in any single department of culture, )
than
KARMAYOGIN.
Bee The Indian Craftsman,' by A. E. GAY, Wi profee by C R. Ashbe London, 1
phonom ml as to wholly forget the bathes and the ideal. Those who defendi reallam no ultimate aim make this mistake. Even more fatal is the view that inskes the significance of art lie solely or primarily in the perfection of indifferent, until at last many realiste depict its own technique, the subject, mitter becoming equally willingly the hideous and the beautiful, sometimes apparently by defaite choice pre preferring the former, so that the term realistic' in art and literature has come, to mean the detailed presentation of the Pleasant. Bát even apart from th this obvious evil, satisfaction in the development and exercise of the imitative powers, carried to excess, precludes the evolution, of the creativa.
in
The essential limitation of this realistic presentation of natural beauty lies in the restriction to a definite point in space and time and in the mingling of desire with emotion: "the impression of the beautiful fades away proportion a natural as any relation of the beautiful object to the desires of the subject eaters his consciousness." The element of the scavou tends to prevail over that of w to prevail over and there is of disinterested exaltation, to that of desire to experience the pleasure associated in the mind with the with the objects represented. This is particularly obvious, for example, in the treatment f the nude, where the realistic manner exciter or tends to excite desire and draws "away from aesthetic contemplation to the sphere
of motional delight degradation from from an attitude
of individual willing." The same is equally true of a landscape picture that rather suggests a desire be back again in so fair place, then conveys a disinterested emotion or idea. Desires thus awakened, it should bo noted, may be very far from wrong, but their awakening does not belong to the best that art can give us. What that best is, wo aball see later. The Modern Review. A.
COOMARASWAMY.
THE CONGRESS SPLIT.
(Reprinted from the Bande Mataram) Price 2 annas per copy. To be had at KALPATARU AGENCY, 14, Sham Bazar Street, Calcutta.
& Conside for example the Tamil text: "Os Lord is the
dater who ike the boat latens in Brewood, diffuses his power ta mind and matter and makes the danse This is lasily 'modern. their turs.
Two new worlds by Peuraler Abe and review by
Such realistic art, however, when we consider Ho much of it as selects, appreciates and etuphasizes the bountiful and the true, is educative alike to artist and to public, in the sense that we love things best first when we see them painted. This is also a necessary stage towarda a higher synthesis. I cannot better express the significance, immediate and future, of this this 'return to nature', thau in the following words taken from a letter lately received from English artist
you Hay
The new Theology is little else than Hinduism. The Theosophical movement is direct ly duo due to the stimulus of Indian thought. The "What socialist finds that he is striving for very much about design and the need for the type rather that which for two or three milleniums has been than tho realistic nature study niture study so exactly ta part t and pareal of the fundamentally demeratic my own thory of doing that I am at once flat structure of In lian wiety. Exhibitions of tered and eaafirns. Yet I would not for Indian art are organised in London for the 'edu-worlds discourage the affectionately interested, cation of the people. The profound influence often passion its stu ly of natural forms which which furtian philosophy is destined to exert on Western thought and life is already evident. Indian scienco had a far-reaching effect on t developinent of certain aspects of of mathemati rlier in the xixth century, and is now exerting ita influence in other ways Much of the modern thenry of Western science goes to confirm and the intuitions of the old Indian relijustify giouscientific writers. and they in their turn are proving suggestive to the modern worker. And finally, small group, of artists and musi ciana-those particularly whose minds are most attuned to the great art of medieval Europeare turning their eyes towards the Eat for
the
Lates Vhs uw in tion can in Brom 12" ent English writer, "it will was again from tha Bust." It is of this as of the Dust that
I now write,
"
PICTURE OF GREAT MEN. Dadabhai Naoraji, Bala Gangadhur Tilak, Khaparde, Maharaja of Braoda, Justice Chandra Madhab Ghose Rashvihari Ghosh, Lala Lajpat Rai, Hon'ble Mr. Thackery, eight port
in
one so young students' work now-a-days-raits one anna only.
bacaso not only would that deprive them of world of pleasure and a source of real education, it would perhaps shut the the door on on what I feel
beginning of a great advance In fo artistic
is the achievement. It is true that this artistic achiovement may not be attained by these same stud nta, but it will be largely the result of their studies. The racial mind will be show mind will be anew trempel dansle vrai, and out of the infinitely various studies, the type image will emerge." Realism thus regarded, marks a necessary stage in a return from artificiality to truth. India merely cannot remain untouched by the necessity for a similar transition period.
At the same time, there is an ever present danger of finding permanent satisfaction in the perfecting of this leaner appreciative art, of becoming so absorbed in
the concrete and
Upadhyay Brahma Bandhab in two colours one anna, Kali Charaa Banerjl 8 pice, In all cases postage extra.
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