As the sense of subtle aesthetics developed in human beings in the course of evolution, a desire to create art also awakened in them. The artist’s ideal is to be established in transcendentality beyond the bounds of the sensory world. So artists, or more precisely, worshippers of fine art, have to be spiritual aspirants if they want to move in the right direction. The cultivation of fine arts by those who have not developed spiritual sentiment or accepted the spiritual ideal as the goal of life is merely a mockery. Only those who look upon all worldly things from a spiritual perspective can realize in everything the blissful Transcendental Entity. The greater the realization of this Transcendental Entity, the greater the understanding of one’s oneness with that Entity, and thus the greater one’s success in the creation of art.

The successful creation of art is absolutely impossible for those who do not seek that subtle Entity, even though they possess some capacity to create. Such people’s thought processes go adrift, like a sailboat with a torn sail. Their mental aberration is reflected in all of their writings, which ultimately become strange and grotesque.

Besides this, in the individual lives of such artists there occurs a serious catastrophe. In the battle between their transitory sense of aesthetics and their desire for material happiness, their strength of character gets destroyed by the tension between the subtle and the crude. That is why we find that in the history of the world those who lacked purity or spiritual ideals and spiritual austerity, no matter how great their genius as poets, sáhityikas or artists, no matter what reputation they earned in their respective fields of art, could not command respect and prestige as human beings in society due to their loose characters. It is due to lack of strength of character that the talents of many good singers, actors and other kinds of artists have prematurely withered away before attaining full development.

As mentioned above, the greater the contact with transcendentality, the greater the success of the artist, for knowingly or unknowingly the human mind is seeking transcendentality. People yearn for the unknown; they cannot remain content with the known. Thus where there is an endeavour to create art merely out of the events of daily life, it does not appeal to the intuitional faculty of the human mind.

Can there be an artist without genius? Is art the result only of sincere endeavour, of hard labour? Quite a knotty question! I think the answer lies in the inherent spiritual thirst of human beings. In other words, a genius is born into this world with a powerful innate spiritual hunger, whether he or she realizes it or not. For those who do not have this spiritual hunger, the endeavour to become artists by effort and labour alone is absolutely useless. But then, if a person who has no creative genius succeeds in kindling his or her spiritual urge and desire for the infinite, it will not be impossible for him or her to develop genius.

Naturalness and Unnaturalness in Art

Another question which has started to be discussed is the question of naturalness in art. According to many, art should faithfully express itself in the same natural way that, for example, people normally eat, sleep and talk; otherwise, they say, it will be defective. In the field of drama much emphasis is being given to this idea these days. This has also affected recitation and other forms of artistic expression. But I cannot fully agree with this view.

Depending upon the theme and nature of the topic, the introduction of diversity in theatrical expression is quite natural. To express crude ideas one must resort to crude language, crude gestures and crude forms of expression in daily life. These, however, cannot be employed to give expression to subtle feelings. For this a particular language, a particular diction and particular gestures will be necessary. Then it will be easy to appreciate the beauty of the dramatic performance at its face value, instead of looking at it as an expression of naturalness.

Actually, the vivid presentation of the artist’s ideas is of primary importance, and to achieve this any means should be adopted. We should not be too concerned with naturalness or unnaturalness; none of the illustrious actors of the world have ever worried about this point. The dogmatic assertion about the importance of naturalness in art has not come from the mouths of important personages of the theatrical world, but from petty people with superficial knowledge.

The combination of language and mudrá [gesture] that makes acting successful must be fully utilized by the actors. To maintain naturalness one should not use confused or incoherent language or make the characters gesture-less and awkward. In individual life, in our so-called natural state, we seek to express our inner ideas, and often the communication of these ideas to others is secondary. In a dramatic performance, however, this communication is of primary importance.

Music

The same holds true for music. The combination of giitá- vádyá-nrtya [song, instrumental music and dance] is called saḿgiita [“music”]. When a song is composed only to express the laughter and tears of ordinary life, it is not very difficult to convey this to the ears and hearts of the people; the song discharges its responsibility well enough using ordinary language and melody. But where the feelings and sensibilities are deep and subtle – where one has to create vibrations in the molecules and atoms of the body, in the chords of the heart – the music has to follow an extraordinary path. Hence, to those who are incapable of ingesting the subtle feelings of the science of music, the álápa [introductory portion of a classical piece] will be nothing but prálápa [delirious raving].

If music must descend to the ordinary level of life to conform to the desire for naturalness, then pre-eminence will be given to doggerels, and the sweetness and charm of real music will become extinct. Indeed, the music that is in vogue in the world today in the name of popular music is nothing but doggerels of this type, though expressed in better language. Language, rhythm and melody are indispensable parts of a song – one cannot exclude any one of them. (The difference between a song and instrumental music is that songs are comprised of rhythm, melody and language, but in [Indian] instrumental music rhythm is predominant, melody is subordinate and language is absolutely nil.)

Dance and Recitation

Dance is customarily divided into two categories: gestural and rhythmic. Many people are loathe to accept that gesture-less, rhythmic dance can be considered dance at all. If one looks at the characteristics of dance, one must admit that both gestures and rhythm are important components of a dance: the gestures give expression to the inner sentiment, and the rhythm gives it dynamism. If dance has only gestures but is devoid of rhythm, it is called pantomime, not dance. And dance devoid of gestures is merely a form of physical exercise – it is not art.

The greatest difference between recitation and acting is that in acting there is both language and gesture, while recitation consists of language only. Thus in acting there is greater scope for the expression of refined aesthetic taste than in recitation.