Monday, 24 October 2022 | Vir Singh
GUEST COLUMN
Vir Singh
An aesthetically rich environment is essential for the physical, intellectual, moral, emotional, and psychological development of human beings. An aesthetic culture creates and nurtures such an environment. Without beauty, we shrink; we are deprived of our holistic development. This shrinkage manifests itself in various diseases of civilisation, in a state of depression, apathy and despair that jointly gnaw at the very roots of our existence. Beauty is an expression of the harmony of life. The famous philosopher Plotinus says that the more beautiful an object, the deeper its existence. In other words, the more coherent and harmonious the life forms, the more intensely they exist in the sense of the accumulated evolutionary potential through which the glory of life is expressed. The great art of the last millennium has been recognised as great because of the power of wonderful energies and the life-enhancing coherence inherent in it. Beauty is a powerful aspect. Plato has called beauty god.
Natural evolution does not create fake and ugly things. When natural evolution created beauty, it created its own blossoming organ. Whenever beauty blooms, culture blooms. Whenever beauty smiles, life shines. When beauty resides within us, grace, compassion and cheerfulness are instilled and articulated. Eco-philosopher Henryk Skolimowski says, “Beauty is the flower of evolution, life and god.”
Beauty is a necessity for human life, but it is not that natural evolution alone is creating and spelling out its beauty, and that we simply have to enjoy this beauty. Man has to co-create this beauty. Evolution has created human beings as co-creator along with itself as a complement and for an aesthetic extension. Man has to protect, preserve and enhance beauty. Man has to choose beauty through action. For beauty to exist, our philosophy must consist of aesthetic values. Devoid of aesthetics, it cannot fulfill its ‘co-creation with evolution’ objective.
A pioneer of the freedom struggle, intellectual and philosopher Lala Har Dayal considers “appreciation and enjoyment of the best art” as the main objective of aesthetic culture. He says, “Art stirs our emotions. Emotions are its domain. The intellect has nothing, or very little, to do with it. Science is related to the intellect, while art appeals to emotions. Beauty does not pass through the gate of intellect. It has its own shortcut to the soul.”
It is an illusion that art does not attract the intellect, that it is only a matter of feelings. Art has an overall attraction of emotions as well as intelligence. Har Dayal’s view considers emotions and intellect to be separate from each other. But this statement of his does not enter into intellect. Everything in a body, in an ecosystem, in the entire biosphere, and, indeed, in the entire universe, is an integral part of one unbroken universe. Furthermore, intelligence, as Har Dayal argues, is not a mere field of science. Wisdom is the power of development within man and cannot be viewed with a distinction between various aspects of life and the universe.
Human intelligence is a ‘karma-field’ of the mind and it is an immaculate creation of evolution. Human intelligence tries to establish a connection with every thing and every universal phenomenon. Searching, discovering, unfolding, inventing, creating and enjoying every event and every universal occurrence are the various dimensions of human intellect. Aesthetic appreciation is an intellectual and rational judgment. Human intellect makes strong connections with various forms of art. Let us correct Har Dayal by saying: Beauty passes through the gate of intellect and it has its own shortcut to the soul.
If beauty cannot touch intellectual abilities and only shadows our emotions, then our intellect will become indifferent to beauty and ugliness. Again, the essentials of beauty to life would be questionable. Har Dayal’s theory cuts intelligence and beauty off each other; hence, it is not acceptable. Any theory that shrinks life should be explicitly discarded. The essence of truth is: Beauty is indispensable for life-enhancement. Beauty imparts meaning to life. Beauty is the purpose of evolution. Evolution blossoms with the flowering of beauty.
A life without beauty becomes hopeless and devoid of eternal bliss. Skolimowski says, “Beauty is the expression of joy and joy of beauty. Beauty and joy are separate, but they participate in each other’s existence.” Beauty is the source of eternal hope and eternal bliss. On the fertile background of beauty, the imagination blooms brightly. If beauty is divorced from life, then the imagination dries up. Beauty is an immortal source of imagination. Beauty, as Skolimowsky says, is like light and love and is therefore very natural to humans. The aesthetic culture of a society has an important contribution to transforming dull and meaningless life into a life of beauty and fulfillment. Beauty is a way for life to unleash all its potencies. No joy in life can be imagined without beauty. Without beauty, no creativity can be genuine, interesting, stimulating, and inspiring. In the path of ugliness, our feet slip towards hell. On the path of beauty, you find the hum of heaven within you. Beauty is equal to truth, light, goodness, morality and immortality, while ugliness is equal to falsehood, darkness, evil, immorality and death. All the creative potentials of the mind get activated amidst the touching and loving beauty of nature. The world’s best works – epics, poetry, dramas, art – have blossomed amidst the beauty of nature. An artist fills his art with colors of happiness and eternal bliss. The creativity involved in the work of artists embodies imagination and draws inspiration from nature. Nature is fertilised with eternal beauty, so works of art are based on ecstatic fantasies and inspiration from nature. Art is the culmination of joy in itself, in its existence, and in the community. The joy of living should come to all as a law of human nature. Har Dayal suggests, “You should feel joy in every nerve and fiber of your existence.” The deepest root of human nature is to live with joy. Beauty is the essence of enjoyment of life and vibrant beauty culture is an essential part of human life.
(The author is emeritus professor of environment science, GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology. Views expressed are personal)
