Gleanings

 

Sri Nandalal Bose on Art

In the PRABUDDHA BHARATA (Dec. 1943) Swami Prabuddhananda reports a conversation he had with Sri Nandalal Bose on Art. The following are extracts from the replies given by the great artist:

Art is imagination. It is feeling expressed in line, form and colour. Art must evoke feeling, otherwise its value is nothing …….

The aim of art is creation, and not imitation of Nature. The same creative impulse that moves in Nature, impels and inspires the artist. And it is this inspiration which the hand of the artist paints to the senses. Art is thought. To be communicable, thought must take concrete form…….

In any work of art, life-movement is that movement which is impelled by the very first impulse of inspiration, which carries in it the intrinsic quality and character of the particular rasa that has to be expressed. In a picture it is the most vital line; in a poem it is the inevitable word or combination of words. It is there that one feels the very pulse or life-throb of a picture or a poem. It, at once, renders unity and character to the work in hand.

Rhythm is a further elaboration of that life-movement; it combines other elements, motifs, units; it catches up the original movement and adds to that a continuous swing; continues it in a perfect harmony of contrasting as well as corollary movements……

Perspective is the artist’s apparent relation with the objects seen at a distance. Things, when looked at from a distance, appear smaller than their actual size. This is a phenomenon which an artist has got to take note of. Omission of this knowledge in any work of art means violation of the law of perspective. But what is the truth in perspective? The mind sees things in a way peculiar to itself. An object which is distant to the physical eye may be near to the mind; a near one, distant. The mind often ignores the category of space. There are, therefore, two kinds of perspectives, namely, visual and mental. Following the mind, the oriental artists, not infrequently, omit visual perspective in their works of art. So, some Western critics find fault with them. But they do not realize how much mind contributes to art. It is mind not eye which is the real artist.

China excels in landscape of a kind which expresses spiritual realisation and spiritual experience in the artist through conventional and symbolical forms of Nature. Realistic portrait-painting has reached its high-watermark of excellence in Europe. India has excelled in the expression of spiritual realization through conventional and symbolical drawings of animals and human figures…….

You have to look at them (works of art) with the eyes of a child. You should not approach them with preconceived ideas, or the analytical eye of a mere critic. Art is not to be appreciated in that way.

Shaw Retires

The following are extracts from ‘S’ who writes in the INDIAN SOCIAL REFORMER (4–12–1943) on “G B S looks ”:

George Bernard Shaw has given Hannen Swaffer what is described as a “farewell interview.”

It is strange that Shaw, who prides himself on his essential common-sense, should have slipped so badly as to fall a prey to the human weakness of seeking a striking exit and then, too, talk of “awaiting his turn with serenity.”

The message itself is painful reading. It is doubly so when it comes in the evening of his days from one who has so indubitably left his mark on the many facets of British life. Shaw has been a force for progress, however feeble he may feel it was. And it is not helpful to progress when one, who was essentially a fighter, tells the world that the fight has been all in vain.

What is tragic is Shaw's loss of faith in his own work. At a younger age it would not have mattered very much, this loss of faith for then one can cease from persisting in futility. But it is a pretty desperate state to reach when one “is awaiting one's turn in serenity.” “This is the way the world ends–not with a bang but a whimper.”

The age we live in has produced men who have both style and thought. Prominent among them are Havelock Ellis and Bernard Shaw. But Shaw’s brilliance was his bane. The world at large distrusts brilliance. Lesser men console themselves for the lack of it by equating it with instability and, when it is accompanied by a sense of humour, with irresponsibility. Most men can reconcile themselves to a new idea if it is not clumsily presented. All of them can enjoy good writing if there is no thought within it.

The influence of Shaw on the times is difficult to gauge. It is impossible to say of anyone man that he changed the ideas of his period, except in obituary notices. But of Shaw one thing is certain; that many of the things which were shocking when he first uttered them, are now become current coin. Some of them have even become out-of-date. The reason why Shaw is taken more seriously now is that the paradox of yesterday has ceased to dazzle, has almost ceased to be a paradox. The medium of the stage and the number of plays put out by Shaw both enabled the public to grow familiar with his style. And humour was the element which caught and held public attention. It is a moot point whether the humourist achieves anything beyond amusing his hearers and readers. There are many who hold that to get people to laugh at their own foibles is the best way to restore them to normality. On the other hand, the man who starts getting people to laugh with him at their follies often ends by being always laughed at himself. The man who would set his mark on the world, must be capable of rousing people to an emotion less balanced than laughter. Humour is, after all, a sense of proportion. Shaw himself has said this often. When one sees things clearly, one is apt to refrain from action, because one has lost that singleness of purpose, which inspires all action.