What is art?

[PDF] Well now, let us turn to the question of Art? Let us try to answer the question: What is Art? This is surely one of the most vexed, much debated and discussed questions in the whole history of thought, especially western thought; though it is discussed also in the East, especially in India, but the discussion which has gone on in India has followed such different lines that one cannot even begin to compare it with western discussions on the subject.

Now some years ago, when I had more time then I have nowadays, I devoted quite a lot of time and energy to the study of this question of what is Art? And I found that there are numberless definitions of art, and some of them are in a way quite extraordinary. There is one definition that goes: ‘Art is an attempt to create pleasing forms'. This is Herbert Read's definition. Then there is another one, very famous indeed in its own day: ‘Art is significant form'. A whole book has been written about that phrase. This is Clive Bell's definition. And then we find someone else saying: ‘Art is intuition'. This is Croce. This seems rather vague, that art is intuition. And all of these definitions, and all the other definitions that I came across, I found very very unsatisfactory. I found them either too broad or too narrow, or just incomplete. So I eventually decided that I would have to formulate my own definition of art, at least to my own satisfaction. And I did this in a little work that I wrote in 1953 or 1954, when I was in Kalimpong, and I called it ‘The Religion of Art’.

A definition of art.

Now in this little work I have given a definition of Art as follows:

Art is the organisation of sense impressions [into pleasurable formal relations] that expresses the artist's sensibility and communicates to his audience a sense of values that can transform their lives.

Now I believe, and this is my honest opinion, that this is the most complete definition of art that has ever been suggested. I have not seen any other since then in any way as complete, covering all aspects of the subject. So let us examine it in a little greater detail. There is no time for a full discussion, that would take us too far afield, but we will deal mainly with those aspects of the definition that have some bearing on the subject with which we are at present concerned: art and the spiritual life, or Art and the Higher Evolution of Man.

First of all, art is the organisation of sensuous impressions. I remember reading some time ago a book on poetry, and this book started off by saying that we must never forget that poetry consists of words. You might think it difficult to forget this, but apparently, according to the author of this book, lots of people did forget this, that poetry consisted of words. We can go even further than that, and say that, yes, poetry consists of words, but of what do words consist? Words consist of sounds, vibrations in the air. So we find that all the arts have as their raw material, their basic stuff, sensuous impressions. This is where the arts begin, with the impressions coming in to us through our five physical senses. The raw material of painting is after all simply visual impressions; impressions of shape and colour, light and shade, etc. And in the same way, the raw material, the stuff of music is auditory impressions, sounds of various kinds: loud, soft, harmonious, discordant, etc. And poetry, what is the raw material of poetry? Again sounds, but sounds associated in varying degrees, and not always completely associated, with conceptual meaning. So we have these sensuous impressions through the ear, the eye and so on, pouring in upon us all the time, things that we see and hear, shapes, colours, sounds, etc. and these impressions the artist organises into a pattern. At first there is a chaos, a chaos of sensuous impressions. The artist, being a creator, organises these sensuous impressions into a pattern, a world, a whole, so that there is no longer just a chaos of impressions but this shape, this whole, this work of art.

There are of course various ways of organising sensuous impressions. Some ways are very simple, others are highly sophisticated. These different ways involve the principles of, for instance, repetition, contrast, etc. Now this organisation of sensuous impressions, which the work of art essentially is, does not hang suspended in mid-air. It does not exist apart from or dissociated from the artist. The work of art, the artist's organisation of sensuous impressions into a pattern, into a whole, into a work of art, in fact, expresses the artist's sensibility. That is to say, the pattern, the work of art, which organises the sensuous impressions, expresses or embodies the awareness of the artist, the experience of the artist, his experience of life as a whole, his experience of himself, of other people, even of reality. And this we may say is the aspect of our definition of art which concerns us most in our present context: that the work of art expresses the artist's sensibility or awareness or experience. Now this is generally understood, but it is not generally understood that this sensibility, this awareness of the artist has many different degrees corresponding to the level of being and consciousness of the individual artist. And this brings us directly back to the subject of Higher Evolution. We may say that the Lower Evolution consists in the development of a higher and ever higher degree of life, whereas the Higher Evolution consists in the attainment of higher and ever higher degrees of consciousness and awareness. Now the true artist has access to higher levels of consciousness, awareness, understanding even, than the ordinary man, and this is one of the reasons why he is an artist; because of this greater, more advanced, more extensive, higher awareness and experience.

Art and the spiritual life:

1. Art and the Spirtual Life.
2. The Artist as more Aware or Self-Conscious.
3. The Artist as Creative.
4. What is Art?
5. * The Artist as wicked, immoral and selfish?
6. Nabokov and the word Genius.
7. Values that can transform our lives.
8. When an Artist creates he objectifies.

By Urgyen Sangharakshita.

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Dernière mise à jour:
11 mai, 2007.