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A LOVER OF LIGHT AMONG LUMINARIES : Dilip Kumar Roy to the inspiration he might get from his inner perceptions, "and must create whenever his daemon goads him to."7 Then he can utilise his extra energy for the upliftment of social condition. He very firmly believes that a true art and culture flourish only when the artist, while creating his piece of art, keeps in his mind the interests of the masses. So, an artist can lead all people towards spirituality.
Like Mahatma Gandhi, Rolland, too, did not support the specialisation in art. He said
“....truly great art must appeal to the uneducated and the trulyeducated nearly to the same extent, even though they may look
at the same art from different standpoints. “8
Keeping in mind Nietzsche's Origin of Tragedy he informs Dilip Roy that, while appreciating a piece of art, the educated can have a purely intellectual
Indpoint and the uneducated can have an emotional standpoint. But art can best be appreciated when the golden mean between the two attitudes is struck. He added :
“....with the born artist this power of harmonisation may be said to be almost native, instinctive. In Beethoven, for instance, one finds this happy harmony in its full, native spontaneity —
this marriage of the intellectual appeal with the emotional."9
Dilip Roy and Romain Rolland, then had discourse on another fine artliterature. According to Rolland, music may be called the carrier of emotional expression in the realm of art and it directly appeals through pure sound values. On the other hand, literature has to pass through the medium of live and effective words, thoughts and images before it reaches the reader's mind. So, he tells: "... while music is more universal and direct in its appeal, literature is, somehow, more stable and less susceptible to the mutations of time."10
Comparing the two Russian artists, Turgenev and Tolstoy, Rolland said that the former was undoubtedly a greater artist than the latter because he had much greater affinity to the Latin art. Turgenev, Rolland deduced, was a great stylist, too. But Tolstoy was more Russian, human and universal than Turgenev. He, very judiciously, said:
"Turgenev was a genius too, but Tolstoy's genius was of a higher order. Everything is great with him—his defects not less
so than his qualities. Turgenev is fine: Tolstoy, magnificent”!!
In this French critic's opinion, Balzac was a curious artist in that he hardly bothered about art and style of his works. He was a man of extraordinary vitality and enthusiasm. Rolland tells: "In a word, he wrote because he had to."!2 Once, surprisingly, Balzac wrote almost a whole novel in twenty two hours. But Emile
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