Cousins JH - Work and Worship - Essays On Culture and Creative Art (1922)

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WORK AND WORSHIP

JAMES
H.
COUSINS
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BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME Op THE
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THE GIFT OF
HENRY W. SAGE
1891
CB19 .C86
Cornell University Library
Work and worship
essays on culture and
3
olin
1924 029 755 109
WORK AND WORSHIP
BY THE SAME AUTHOR

The Wisdom
to
of the
West an
Introduction
of Celtic
the
interpretative
study
Mythology.
The
Kingdom
of
Youth essays on
the
principles of education.
New Ways
of a
in English
Literature studies
number
of the leading poets of the
present day.
The Renaissance
Footsteps
of
of
in India
a survey of the
chief cultural influences in
modern India. Freedom essays on the
growth
the idea of freedom in certain
great writers.
The Play of Brahma an essay on the place of the drama in national revival. Modern English Poetry, its characteristics
and tendencies
seven
public lectures in
the Keiogijuku University, Japan.
The
Cultural Unity of Asia
a study of the
Asian cultural
tendency
to unification in
movements.
WORK AND WORSHIP

ESSAYS ON CULTURE AND CREATIVE ART
JAMES
H."
COUSINS
GANESK &
CO.,
1922
MADRAS
iV!Hs;;n
Y
Id
Cornell University Library
The
tine
original of
tliis
book
is in
Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright
restrictions in
text.
the United States on the use of the
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029755109
NOTE
During
Indian
the compilation of this book, certain
chapters were published in Rupam, Shama'a,

Business,
Tomorrow and
for
New
India.
Where
for
necessary, permission has been obtained

inclusion,
their
which the author
expresses his thanks.
DEDICATED
TO THE STAFF AND STUDENTS
OF
THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY ADYAR, MADRAS
CHAPTER
THE FUNCTION OF CULTURE

It
yet
say.
is
a question
to
managed
say exactly what
whether language has ever it meant to

of a hlack pencil,
We
speak in English
and
in doing so
we
utter half a lie
and a truth
of
that only conveys at most one-quarter
the
;
truth
for a black pencil is not
wholly black
only
its
lead
is
and the blackness
of its lead to
is
may
a a
person
range from HB to BBB. A demand to " state exactly what you want "
for the impossible.
hungry man may say with very strong emphasis, " I want but the extent of his want and the food " nature of the supply has all to be said he may be a large eater he may be a vegetarian. Language is, in truth, only an approximation
demand
;
towards the fact that is desired to be conveyed. The simpler and nearer to the rudiments of
physical
life
the fact
is,
the closer
is
the
WORK AND WORSHIP

itself
approximation between the thing

formulation in
the hillside of language.
life,
and
its
But as we ascend our view becomes wider

;
and takes in a greater content and our speech becomes richer in the unspoken assumptions that we attach to words and phrases.
When we come
of abstract
to the
attempted expression
truth, the approximation

is
between
idea
and language
so remote that the space
between can only be crossed on long bridges of commentary and exposition which rest on incalculable arches of argument and illustration.
One
that
line in Shelley's
poetry has a
prose annotation of twelve pages.
The
four
Vedas
that
one can carry in one's pocket are

without the sixteen Upanishads
;
inexplicable
few have in their libraries and how far these have succeeded in their purpose is seen from the stacks of Commentaries which continue to be produced even unto this day. The word culture comes no nearer absolute expression than others. It comes from a Latin original [colere] which means two things There are many to till and to worship. words in the English language which carry alternative meanings quite unconnected with

one
to
another.
The
word
lei,
for
example,
means, among other things,

do something.
in
to
permit a person
But the word when used
by Hamlet
held
ghost
("
his struggle against those
who
him back
from following his father's

I'll
By
leis
heaven,
make
to
ghost of
him
until
that
me,") appears
be nonsense
we
of
understand that there are really two

let in
forms
English, one derived from the

;
Anglo-Saxon laetan, to permit the other from the Anglo-Saxon lettan, to hinder. There are
other words that carry alternative meanings
which, while apparently opposed or unrelated,

are really different stratifications of the
same
meaning.
it
The word prevent means

is a
to
make
God
life
impossible for a person to do a particular

;
action
for
but there
Christian prayer to
all
His guidance in
".
the activities of
which
doings
begins, " Prevent us,
Lord, in
all
our
The two meanings, apparently

back
to the
;
con-
tradictory, go
Latin prae, before,
and
venire, to
come
front.
and, learning this,
we
see that both hindrance and guidance imply
something in
level
vention puts a stop to action

it
At the lowest level preon a higher

; ;
modifies action
the Divine guidance
WORK AND WORSHIP

hindrance
of
implies a modified
wayward
human
to
activity.
is is
There
a Latin saying, Laborare est orare,

to
work
pray.
The saying
is
pun
on the similarity of the ending of But its intenlaborare with the word orare. tion goes deeper than a play upon words.
based
Prayer
is
the offering of the lips
wôrk
is
the
offering of the hands.
Prayer
in
is faith
in God's
of
providence expressing
itself in
the labour
words
work
its
is
faith
God's providence
expressing
itself in
the speech of action.
This
saying, with
interplay of meaning, offers us

to see in
encouragement
of
the two root-meanings
the word
culture (tillage and worship) not
a haphazard association in etymology, but a
fundamental relationship
place of both in
in
idea,
and in the
life. Let us consider whether worship and be not but obverse and rework verse of a coinage from the mint of culture.
According
to
the Christian
legend of the
beginnings of the
human
race, the
primary
was agriculture. God made Adam and Eve, and placed them not in a city, but in a garden. Whether we accept this version of human origins literally or
occupation of humanity

figuratively,
whether or not we regard tillage as the first occupation of humanity in time, it All economic is certainly first in importance.
thought leads back
source of real wealth.
to
the land as the only
The
poet laureate of the
Chola dynasty
of
Southern India in the eighth
century put the matter into a

gion,
poem
in
which
reli-
he declared that power, luxury, labour,

even the by the
agriculturist.
is
deities themselves, are supported
The hand that holds the spear of power ported by the hand that holds the plough.
is
sup-
The hand that wears jewels in luxury and ease supported by the hand that holds the plough.
The hand
of
him whose
fate is to toil against
poverty
plough.
is
supported by the hand that holds the

is
The hand that makes offerings to the gods supported by the hand that holds the plough.
The hands of the gods that control the world are supported by the hands that hold the plough.
Here we have culture

the
at its lowest point
on
human
side,
the culture of nature for the
purpose of satisfying the physical needs of
humanity.
To
find an analogy
between
this
culture of nature and the tillage process applied

to
man's own nature [the process which
we
call
moral, intellectual, ssthetical or spiritual
t)
WORK AND WORSHIP

according
as
it
culture
is
directed towards
conduct, thought, feeling or the higher nature),
we have
to place ourselves in imagination in
the position of nature, and see
man
as the
special faculty within nature through
which
she achieves culture.

urge to
Within her there is the growth and elaboration. Unaided she
spreads out her wild progeny of

jungle and forest
;
swamp and
is
but the tendency of these
toward rankness, overcrowding and ultimate
mutual degeneration, if not destruction. With growth unchecked the earth would become
(as
Milton
visualises
it
in
Comus] " quite
surcharged with her
own
weight,"
;
strangled with her waste fertility Th' earth cumber'd, and the wing'd air darkt with plumes, The herds would over-multitude their lords. The sea o'erfraught would swell, and th' unsought diamonds Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep. And so bestud with stars, that they below Would grow inur'd to light, and come at last To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows.
And
Then comes man who,

order to satisfy his
in cultivating nature in
own needs, is really satisfying nature's need for cultivation, for redemption
from her own embarrassment
of
wild richness.
He
fells
her primitive
forests,
makes
habitable
clearings, utilises the decayed sheddings of a
million past
for a
autumns
the
vast
as
fertilising material
new
spring, turns wild grasses into
com,
transmutes
quantity
of
unbridled
growth
tillage
;
into
the
superb quality of guided

is fulfilled
and through him
the vision
of the seer
The wilderness and made glad.
the solitary place shall be
And
rose.
the desert sball rejoice and blossom as the

is
"
The man
only half himself," wrote Emer-
son, " the other half is his expression."
The
same naay be said of nature. If her forces of growth and elaboration did not express themselves,
either in
the savagery of primitive
luxuriance or the civilisation that comes to
her through plough and harrow, seeder, reaper
and thresher, she would remain but half herself, knowing only the dull pressure of her own potentialities, knowing nothing of the
relief
and joy
her
it
of
fulfilment.
It
is
only in
expression that she achieves progression. She

casts
seed
away with one hand
and
receives
back in the other.
In her perpetual
death she finds eternal Hfe.
WORK AND WORSHIP

The analogy between nature and humanity
and
clear.
is close
In humanity (as in nature)
there
led,
is
an expansive desire which, uncontrolinto the smothering jungle of

its
may grow
selfish
passion, and defeat
own
ends by
its
own
of
surplusages, finding death through excess

But,
just
as,
life.
within nature,
man
became
the instrument of agriculture
which
raised crude
growth
to the level of cultivation,
and changed bulk into excellence, so, within man, the mind became the instrument of homoculture which has brought him from savagery
to
to
comparative
fell
civilisation.
When
he began
also to
trees
in order to
make
habitable clear-
ances in the primeval
forest,
he began
make
spaces for sun and air in his

that he
own nature.
the re-
Every discovery
sources of nature
himself.
made among
was
a discovery of powers in
Every effort
to
understand and forestall
the fluctuations of nature in her moods that

call
we
seasons
was
attainment of
an exercise towards the imagination and prophecy. As
he nourished himself on nature he grew in
numbers and learned organisation and government, not only between communities, but in the community of heart and mind in each

individual.
tion of nature
So intimate has been the interacand humanity that it is seen to

:
be more than a mere parallelism

identification.
it is
a vital
As
man
cultivated
nature,
nature cultivated man, and both to the same
purpose
the
turning of diffuse potentialities

expression, and the lifting of
into definite realisation, the attainment of that
other half of
life,
that expression through successive stages
from
is
low
to high.
first
This
stage
is
the function of culture. the cultural piôcess
The
actuated
of
by nothing higher than necessity,
the necessity of avoiding annihilation through
the self-destructive powers of appetite
when
these are not controlled and guided by a power
higher than themselves.

the cultural process
is is
A
sake,
second stage in
reached
rejoiced in for its
own
when culture when there is a
pleasure in the reduction of the bewildering

disorder of
life
to
the order of a picture or a

of
poem, or in the tidying

dress.
sity
is
There
is
a third stage
room or one's at which neces-
transcended,
when
culture ceases to be
merely temperamental but joyful response to the imposition of a higher desire upon the lower, and becomes an intelligent co-operation
a
10
WORK AND WORSHIP
with a superhuman Power which is itself felt to be the source and the culmination of culture. Then it is realised that while necessity at first appeared to be the parent of culture, it was in
reality a cultural urge in the nature of super-
humanity that made necessity the means

its
to
own
end.
When
many
of
this
stage
has been
great
reached
of the
(and
the
world's
it),
creative artists have reached
the meaning
word culture has passed from tillage to worship. The Divine Personality and its method and purpose are glimpsed, and the
endeavour
of
life is
henceforth to disclose the
characteristics of that Divine Personality, to live (as Milton put it) " as ever in the great
Task-master's eye," with

but a sacrament.
life
not a gratification
We
have
not,
however,
to
wait until
we
are artists in order to experience something of
the thrill of devotion in culture.
The openof of
eyed poet, Francis Thompson, sang in beauti-
symbolism and rhythm the realisation the truth which has been stated in terms
ful
spiritual science
by many an Indian seer

of
From sky
to sod.
The world's unfolded blossom smells
God.
11
But the first man (or woman) who, coming upon a power of nature, prostrated before it, and began a religious
into
rite that
has developed
a great religion, had felt the

realised,
same
truth.
He
of
though not perhaps in terms

consciousness,
that
mental
while
the
to
necessities
of
his
life
compelled
the
him
grow things
(or to accept the gifts of trees
and
shrubs without
his
labour],
miracle of
growth, and the equal miracle of decay, were powers beyond him, powers obviously of a Being superior to himself. The beginnings of agriculture and spiritual culture went hand in hand, side by side with the beginnings of
mental culture
to us,
not
consciously perhaps, but
looking back over
many
centuries of
all
phases of culture, indicatively

culture.
of the future of
But while the vision

is
of the seer is anticipat-
ed in the intuitive act of the primitive man,

it
only an
anticipation,
not a realisation.
There is no identification of interest between upper and lower and as time goes on, the gulf between God and His creation grows wider and deeper, until culture (agriculture and homoculture) and worship have come to
;
12
WORK AND WORSHIP

different,
mean
and
in
some phases, opposed

centuries of culture,
into the creation
;
activities of life.
Many
religious
and
artistic,
went
of the beautiful cathedral
cultured
enemy
lips,
nation,
Rheims but a with the name of God

of
on
its
flung
fiery
destruction
on the
monument of art. And who knows what would have happened had the fortunes of war given the French the opportunity of being belligerent invaders of German territory?
precious
Is
it
not alleged that the
bowmen
of
of
Gascony
in France made the model
Francesco Sforza
by Leonardo da Vinci a target for their arrows to such effect that art was robbed of one of its
masterpieces ?
These anomalies in the
life of
nations
which
regard themselves as cultured are due to two
main causes
first,
that the majority of civilised
human
ture.
beings, while nominally cultured, have
not yet passed beyond the tillage aspect of cul-
They have developed

needs
of others,
their resources,
sharpened their wits, blunted their sensibility

to the
boasted of wealth with

spirit
poverty in their hearts

of
but have kept the
worship, of devotion to a higher Power,
matter of one day in seven and of a place

apart
13
of
is
from
life.
The second cause

cultured
of
life
such
that,
anomalies in so-called
nowithstanding generations
production of
the arts, the
wonderful objects
yet risen above
sity.
of
culture in
bulk of the so-called cultured nations have not

the domination of low necesa
Here and there are found

of of
few
;
fore-
runners
the true cultured future
but the
masses
at
the nations, and their leaders, will,

to their material possessions,
some threat
their
turn
backs
without apology on their

ugly negation of
profession of faith and their boast of culture,
and take
to that last
all
that
culture stands for
At the present stage of human culture the law of material gravitation is predominant the general tendency of the mass consciousness is downwards. A nation will commit the tragic
physical warfare.
;
contradiction of killing a
for his killing a
man in punishment man, accounting murder the most serious crime; but it will march with bands playing and the blessing of its religious leaders to wholesale murder. But these things
will
pass.
The
to a
cultural
urge
will
carry
humanity on
time
when
the gravitation of
the spirit will overtake and dominate that of the
14
flesh.
WORK AND WORSHIP
We
take legitimate pride in the arts
and
as
artists of
humanity when we regard them

of
forerunners
future
achievement.
At
present they are more of a rebuke, since not

yet,
despite the
glories
of
architecture and
and painting, have we succeeded in making the face of common life fair to look upon not yet, despite the achievements of music and poetry, has life itself become rhythsculpture
;
mical and harmonious. Culture without worship

is
incomplete.
We
see this incompleteness in that era of English

literature
classical,
in
the
eighteenth
century called
when
the thrill of reverence and
devotion (even at the comparatively low level

of
Elizabethan reverence for
its
own power
and dovotion
out of
life,
to its own self-interest) had died and culture became a two-edged

it
mental blade that wounded where

satire,
struck in
but more deeply
wounded
its
wielder
in
his
own
soul.
And
because of this into
completeness there came a movement

is called
what
itself
romance
scope,
in literature,
when
is
the heart
was given
to
and ultimately the soul
found utterance that only

reveal
its
now
beginning
full
significance, the utterance

of
15
Shelley's poetry
which
is
aflame with the
spirit of
devotion
desire of the moth for the star, for the morrow The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow.
The
Of the night
But
if
culture without worship

is
is
incomplete,
worship without culture

is
no
less incomplete,
soft,
vapourous, fanatical,
for its
vulgar,
cruel.
Each needs the other

a rational future for
fulfilment,
and
educationists with their eyes turned towards
humanity must see that

essentially double inter-
culture
is
given
its
pretation
colere, to till, to -worship.
CHAPTER
II
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE

In the previous chapter,
general.
we endeavoured
to
get a clear idea of the function of culture in
saw that the word came from a Latin root which meant both to till and to worship. We saw, further, that these two meanings were not casual and unrelated, but were stages in the evolution of culture, the
process of tillage in nature and of education in
We
humanity
the
first
arising out of necessity,
passing to a recognition of
and a purpose beyond
human
will,
about the attitude

process
which recognition brings of worship. The cultural

as a response in nature
was seen
and
humanity to an inner urge of growth which imposed destruction as the penalty for failure to rise to higher and higher stages of life and consciousness. Let us now enquire as to

what are the characteristics marks of its identification. Here again we shall find
taking Nature as our guide
of
17
culture, the
illumination by
not merely in the

we bend
of both
sense of finding apt parallels which

to our purpose, but in
root-life
an identification
and subsequent leaves and flowers

breast,
and
fruit.
Throb thine with Nature's throbbing And all is clear from east to west, Spirit that lurks each form within Beckons to spirit of its kin,
sang Emerson.
The chain
of life is
unbroken.
"It
is
a long
way from
granite to the oyster,
farther yet to Plato and the preaching of the
immortality
f
of the soul.
Yet
all
must come."
Emerson
Nature). " If
to
we
look at her work,
we seem
transition.
catch a
glance of a system in
but they grope
;
Plants are the young of the world,

;
vessels of health and vigour
ever upward towards consciousness the are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan
trees their
imprisonment,
rooted
in
the
ground.
The
animal
is
the novice and probationer of a more

order.
advanced
thought,
2
The men, though young,

first
having tasted the
drop from the cup of
are already dissipated; the maples
18
WORK AND WORSHIP

;
and ferns are still uncorrupt yet no doubt, when they come to consciousness, they too
will curse
and swear."
that the cultural urge
is
First let us realise

is
unescapable.
This point
emphasised in
on Culture and Training in " The Kingdom of Youth " in Education in sometimes refer to the these words "
the
chapter
We
socalled
is
savage races as uncultured, but there

Culture
If is
no such thing as unculture.
positive without a negative.
we
do not
consciously put our hands to the plough and
harrow, the pruning hook and the irrigation

rope,
we
shall not find flowers or fruit or rice

;
in our patch of universe
neither shall
we
find
nothing:
we
shall
find
either the primitive
culture of the jungle, or the degenerate culture

that has reverted to type."
This cultural urge

river.
is
it
not a whirlpool, but a
Here and there
has eddies, sometimes

looks upon might
so large (as
over Europe today) that the eye
that can only see
what
it
easily mistake the shape of progress as a circle.

Its
nearest approach, however, to the circular

:
is
the spiral
there
is
always an escape onwards.
And
as the river of culture
moves onwards

it
19
gathers
is
volume
and increases in depth Cut
which
across
at
its
it
the same thing, counting from the
bottom upwards, as increasing in height.
any
point,
it is
seen to be receiving
from
source and simultaneously passing on

receives to the
future.
what
the
Dr.
Hugo
Magus, a European scholar, made a study of growth of human recognition of the

rainbow colours
which were not invented by

found that
chemists, but have existed from the beginning

of
things.
He
;
Homer saw one
colour, purple
Xenophon saw three, purple, red and green Aristotle saw red, green and
;
blue,
with yellow sometimes seen between

Ovid, with considerable
licence,
".
the red and green.

poetical
saw "a thousand dazzling

of colour-consciousness
colours
was
filling
The stream up. The
seasonal procession in
nature gives us another figure of speech for

the realisation of the cultural characteristic
which we are approaching. After tillage comes growth, after growth harvest. The river is not broadest at its source. After culture comes
the fruit of culture, not before.
And
is
the harvest
of homoculture, as of agriculture,
only truly
a burden
harvest
when
its
fruitage is not
made
20
WORK AND WORSHIP

fields,
on the
but
is
gathered only to be scat-
tered in beauty and nourishment, with
some
reservation of seed for the next season.
We
of the
can see now, taking nature as our

is
exemplar, that hoarding

cultural process.
not a characteristic
You may
advertise
in
every
paper
on earth offering a large
reward for a specimen of the cultured miser, and you will have no honest applicant. An art-collector is not necessarily an artist a librarian is not necessarily an author. A room stuffed with costly bric-a-brac should not be exhibited with pride by its owner but with
;
humility, for
to vulgarity
it is
more
certainly a testimonial
than to culture unless accompanied This does not mean that

a
all
is
by an apology.
collecting
(in
room
or
in
one's
head)
vulgar
it
applies
only to the room or the
brain that has only one door, and that opening
inwards.
collection
There are people to is a burden because

get,
whom
it
little
is
a cul-de-
sac in
which we
not the flying odours of
flowers on the breeze, but the stench of stagnation.
and
There are others to whom big museums libraries would be as feathers because by
their
balanced
outflow,
not necessarily

in the giving
21
away
of actual physical objects,
but in imparting pleasure and edification to

others.
The
gathering of knowledge
is
not culture,
notwithstanding the general reverence for the

graduate.
He may have
;
done no more than
cram his barn with other people's seeds and manures but until he has put these into the
land
of
his
own
his
thought
and feeling and
experience, and received their progeny with
something
of
own
substance in them, he
of
has not come near the profit

joy of worship.
work
or the
Let us here observe in this connection a further application of our figure of speech.
The soil
and principle
of
growth are within ourselves.
The seed and
the fructifying or blighting influ"
ences of sun and rain, their excess or their

defect, are outside us.
We
owe the
greater
writers of the golden age of our literature (the
Elizabethan) to that fervid awakening of the

public
mind
[the Renaissance]
which shook
to
the dust the oldest and most oppressive form

of the Christian religion," said Shelley in his
Prometheus Unbound,' discussing the influence of environment on genius. " We

preface to
'
22
WORK AND WORSHIP

to
owe Milton
of
the progress and development

spirit
the
same
...
it is
A number
of
writers possess the form, whilst they want the

spirit of those
whom
alleged they imitate
because the former

age in which they
the
is
the
endowment
latter
of the
live,
and the
must be
incommunicable lightning of their own mind." They are seeded and sunned and
watered by their age, but the ageless process
of tillage is in themselves.
Yet
(to
return to our main line of thought)

is
while knowledge
not culture, while profound
scholarship and gross vulgarity
may
dwell in
the same body, be
it
remembered
that there
can be no real cultural expression without
knowledge;
process in
just
as there can be no cultural
the fields until the accumulated
seed of a previous growing (which
was lumber
while
it
remained in
its
bag)
is
scattered.
We
people a natural refinement of disposition, an intuitive affinity for " the

recognise in
things that are
many
more
excellent".
;
They are
not as
flat
obviously cultured people
and while outside

if
Asia they move as anomalies,

culture, in
contradictions of the necessity of knowledge to
Asia their period of seed-gathering

is
23
dated back
to
lives
is
lived
long ago
and
But
this
thus the anomaly
done away with.

or
not,
whether
pushing
this
be
so
whether
life
intuitive culture
of
be a sport of nature or the
a flower into this
from a root
to
in a life far back,
we must
to
realise that reliance
on the past
thinness,
for both soil
and seed will lead
perhaps
decay.
We
carry our
own farms about with us, but the we can carry to any purpose
imbedded
ments,
in our soil,
fertilisers of
only seeds
are
those
and these and the useful
enthusiasms for causes and movetake from outside.
we must
homoculture
culture)
Knowledge, therefore, is only of service in (as seed and manure in agri-
when
;
applied.
" Reading [that
is,
the
acquisition of knowledge)
said
maketh
a full
man,"
be
Bacon
but a
full
man
mentally
may
as far
from mental culture as a full man (after dinner) from physical culture, if the reader do
not turn his reading into his
own mental
for a
blood
and
tissue.
Culture
lies
not in accumulation
but in assimilation.
of culture
We know him
man
his
who, with a library
at his
elbow,
of
will speak most from the open book
own
mind, with some reference
to authority
24
as a
WORK AND WORSHIP

mark
of the
humility of
all
true culture,
but chiefly with reference to his

tion.
own
convic-
He
but
has gathered the fruits of

the drink expressed from
many
them
trees,
which he offers to us he offers in his own glass. We have said that culture means assimilaThe parallel brings us to another tion.
characteristic of culture.
It is
a matter of con-
siderable illumination to calculate the weight

of food
for
we have comsumed in which we have nothing

body.
our lifetime, and

to
show but one

the quantity
or
puny
rough estimate
a
of
of solid food
consumed by
man
woman
of
thirty-five
years of age gives (exclusive of
what
of
is
cast out of the
system in the process

to
digestion) a
weight equivalent
that
of
from seventeen to twenty-five adults. In the matter of weight the resultant is hopelessly
deficient.
Even
is
his
market value as chemical
constituents
hardly more than ten rupees on
a favourable rate of exchange. in one

scale
But put a
man
and his
total
food-consumption in
another, and an invisible pointer will
move
of
towards the man.

Vijayanagar
is still
Raja Krishnadevaraja of
[even as a
memory)
greater weight than the jewels that he
weighed
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE 25

annually
against
his
himself
for
distribution
amongst
people.
That
greater
value
consists in the qualities and faculties
which humanity has developed through the interplay of its inner power of growth and ascension from lower to higher stages of consciousness and activity, with the substance and environ-
ment given
to
him by
nature.
The
fruitage of
homoculture does not trail for long upon the ground, but lifts itself first by support as the vine towards light and air, and afterwards
by its own power stands erect as the tree and one day will be even as the tree of western mythology, the Yggdrasil, which, though its roots are in hell, tosses its branches
among the The process

homoculture)
grossness to
tion,
starry fruitage of
of
the heavens.
culture (both agriculture and from quantity to quality, from fineness, from a simple elaborais
as in the vast proliferations of rudimen-
tary plants, to an elaborate simplicity
as in
its
the
make-up
of the
grain of wheat with
apportionment
to the
of
of food
elements in such nicety

to
needs of humanity as
in ourselves.
induce a feeling
conspiracy between the Goddess of Corn
and the God
26
WORK AND WORSHIP

Indeed
(to
turn again to an illuminating
side-thought), this nicety of apportionment is
not limited to the single grain, but

of
is
seen in
multiplicity. Nature's marvellous power She takes from us one seed and from it returns
us three hundred.
This appears
to
be a flaw
;
in our parallels of nature

it is
and humanity
of
but
not.
It is
an inverse adjustment
material in
its life of
human
necessity and natural supply.

its
Humanity, with
perpetual
wastage
of
struggle towards higher and higher levels of
power, transmutes the elements

invisible,
of
food into
unweighable energy.
I
Nature says,
meet your need by giving you back much more than you give me, so that of seed for the sower and bread for the and to spare ". eater there may be enough The secondary branches of meaning which have sprung up about the main meaning of the word culture reflect certain ideas which we must realise. To cultivate is regarded as much the same as to refine. Refinement is compounded of two roots which, roughly, mean, to carry a thing to an end (finis) and then change its state in other words, to carry a thing on from one stage of perfection to
well,
shall
'
"
Very
'
'
'

t
another, though with continuity.

of of
This phase
culture
reflects itself
in
is
the refinement
associated with
fold
body and mind which

people.
cultured
An
ugly
in
dress,
an
the
able
to
unharmonious
voice,
colour,
harsh tone in
vulgar gesture,
things
;
an
uncharit-
remark
these
will
give
jar
cultured sensibility
and the charge which
the
cultured
person will
offending thing will be that

taste
' ;
make against the it was not in good

'
in
other words, that
it
erred
from
a standard of perfection
for
which
is
not separate
each offence but applicable

taste
to all.
Refine-
ment and
for
are
regarded
as
synonyms
one
of
the characteristics of culture.
Do
or
we not woman
keen
to or
speak of a refined taste ?

of
A man
taste is
one
who
has developed a
sensibility to the gradations of
approach
retreat
from a standard
of
excellence
which is not in text-books of culture but is the wisdom distilled from a thousand experiences
into a single comprehension.
intelligent.
Taste
is
always
There is no taste in the ignorant, the stupid or the merely acquisitive; for taste comes from the quick and continuous moving
of
the
mind
in
cultural
process which
28
WORK AND WORSHIP
accepts here, rejects there, never goes down,
always moves upward, links remote things

through hidden
affinities, teases out elaborate
tangles to get at their simple root, searches

for the
secret
word
is
of silence in the
midst of
sounds.
This
again the process of assi-
milation of
Its
which we have already spoken.
fruit
is
not
accumulated knowledge, not

but open-eyed and open-
hard-edged
intellect,
hearted understanding.
three thousand years ago
An
:
Asian poet sang
Happy
man
is the man that getteth that getteth understanding.
wisdom, and the
For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than
fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto {Proverbs III, 13, 14, 15.) her.
:
No
for
she
is
a living light in the

of
mind and
heart,
and the desiring
many
things builds
walls of darkness around her.

of tastes there is
In a multitude improvement.
no Taste.
of
Another branch
excellence,'
meaning
is
Improvement means 'to advance in value or which is simply an epitomised
history of both agriculture and homoculture.

means also 'to turn to advantage,' and, from what we have already said of the forth-giving
It
nature of culture,
'
it
will be
seen that the
advantage
'
in
the cultural sense cannot be

selfish.
purely personal or
Indeed, the
word
'improvement' used thus (as in 'improving the occasion to make a few rupees ') is used
wrongly, for
its
true connections deep
down
the
among its roots are with the word prowess, and word prowess (though commonly thought
having strong muscles, a big sword, and
dare-devil eyes) really
of as
means
'to do good'.
We
gather, therefore, that culture is not a
negative thing, not a thing of well-bound books,
well-framed pictures, easy chairs and a languorous pose, but a positive, active, serious matter.
It
loves beautiful things, but not as ends in

It
themselves.
not
its
'
finds pleasure, but pleasure is
purpose.
"
Says Emerson in his essay

as beauty is sought, not
love,
".
on
Art,'
As soon
from religion and

degrades the seeker
but for pleasure,
it
Now
both religion and
love are positive, outgoing impulses of devotion.
Scholasticism in either can never

joy.
know
their true
"
!
unto
me
'
Lord
Lord
Not every one that saith but he that doeth the

!
'
30
will of
WORK AND WORSHIP
my
father
is fit to
be
my
disciple " said
Jesus the Christ.
Tennyson prayed
Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell.
But between knowledge (which is the raw material of culture) and reverence (which is
the highest fruitage of culture) there
is
the
necessary process of ploughing and sowing,

reaping and threshing.
is
Culture,
we
see finally,
not simply appreciation of the beautiful in

art,
nature and
but active participation in the
process of creation.
Our reverence
will be in
accordance with the extent of our active partnership with God,

in
life
Scholars, critics, theorists
and
;
art
may
reduce the universe to

life
blind forces
but the creators in
and
art
are never in doubt as to the existence of a

Creator, for they are He.
CHAPTER
III
THE INSTRUMENTS OF CULTURE

1.
Vital and Sensational

in
There
is
Nature and humanity
(as
we
have seen in the foregoing chapters] an urge to growth which, if uncontrolled, would elaborate itself to a point at
which decay and death
would supervene.
This tendency has been
counteracted by the association of humanity
with Nature, the necessity for the production

of
the
means
to
human
subsistence leading to
organisation and a progression from uncontroll-
ed quantity to controlled quality.
The
appli-
cation of this process of culture (agriculture)
by humanity reacted
sation
in
similar
to
way on
and
to
man's own inner nature, leading

within
the
an organi-
human
units,
groupings which have developed from families

to empires.
This cultural process

;
is
unescap-
able and continuous
and
its
characteristics are
32
WORK AND WORSHIP

improvement which
assimilation of knowledge,
a gradual refinement and
come through the
and the giving out of the results even as the harvest of Nature is scattered for the good of
humanity as well as
of herself.
Let us
now
consider the means or instruments through which the Culture-powers work their will.
In a broad sense
culture in culture
all life is
;
the instrument of
general
but
when we
mind
speak of
a
special
we
usually have in
aspect of
ordinary,
life,
a level of attainment above the
and
of of
implied
in
our thought
is
recognition
some
that
special
level
of
means
for
the
attainment
culture.
The
early
generic term for the instruments of culture

(the
whole
of
tool-box] is education.
In
its
stages education seeks to develop the innate
powers
the child in an allround
way
until
the special bent of the child discloses

specialisation is taken up.
itself
and
In the etymological
'leading
forth'
sense
education
means
drawing
out, developing, intensifying, strength-
ening the powers latent in the child.

education only meant this,
short
it
But
if
would mean
of
in a
time
the
annihilation
humanity
natural
through the over-stimulation
of the

active urge to growth, which,
ed,
if
33
left
uncheck-
would lead to over-elaboration, mutual destruction and death. We shall realise the
truth of this
siderations
if
we
bear in mind certain conregard

to
with
the
composite
make-up of the human being. A Upanishad says, " The nature

is
of
Purusha
desire
".
(Purusha
is
the Universal Spirit,

of
God the Creator.} this means that
Put into terms
our study,
the principle of growth in
nature and humanity
may
be called also an urge
to satisfaction, a reflection of the
cosmic 'desire'.
to satisfy
This desire defines and endeavours

itself
in
nature through a multitude of rela-
tively
simple instruments in the subhuman

;
kingdoms but none of these has succeeded in answering the cosmic desire with cosmic and the desire has moved hunsatisfaction grily onward until it has created the complex
;
human
still
instrument, and, through
it,
searches
for satisfaction.
The human instrument

;
may
It
be regarded as fourfold in composition.

first,
has,
its
vital aspect
and the cosmic

takes the form
to
its
desire, defined through this,

of
appetite
at
3
itself
which has the tendency any cost, even the cost of
fulfil
own
34
WORK AND WORSHIP

is to say,
instruments. That
tite for
the unchecked appe-
indulging
in, say,
alcoholic stimulation
will lead to poisoning

a
and death.
This
is
not
matter which concerns only the individual.
drunkard
who
hurts his brain and nerves,
not only inflicts injury on himself, but, by
reducing his ability to contribute to the public

service,
inflicts
Because
of
an injury on the community. this, education has sought (very

It
inadequately so far) to impose the restraint of

culture on
growing youth.
as part
of
has adopted
physical
culture
of the
the educational
systems
world.
Let us pause here to consider the apparently

contradictory
relationship
of
culture
which
imposes restraint, and education which draws

forth.
An
its
education which lived completely
name, and was purely and simply leading forth of powers on one level of a human activity, would (as has been already observed more than once) lead forth humanity
up
to
'
'
For indevelopment to their fullest extent stance, the only the powers of and observation, all of
over the precipice of destruction.
calculation,
adaptation of
means
to ends, that
make
the perfect burglar or murderer, and the
35
universal establishment of Colleges of Theft
and Assassination, would bring mankind

the level of the primitive jungle.
in this direction has been achieved in
in the appalling economical
to
Something
Europe
Fortu-
anarchy and moral
decay which have followed the War.

elements
tion
in
nately the purely burglarious and murderous
have
commercial and military educahad their destructive tendencies

general
education
counterbalanced to some extent by the cultural
tendency
things to
in
which
lifts
higher levels, reduces quantity and
increases quality.
Take an example. Twentyto the single
two men
of
set
themselves
their
purpose
developing
kicking
and
running
powers.
Each has
a ball as the instrument of
his education.
Obviously the more powerful
the kicking capacity becomes the

tructive
it
more
ball.
des-
will be
on the unfortunate
a single kick
time comes
burst a not
ball.
when
this.
is sufficient to
The purses
of the kickers will

(a
stand
An
ball
idea
cultural
idea)
strikes
one
of
of
them.
They combine
in the
purchase
one
twenty-two times better
in quality than the single balls.
They
all
set
it
in their midst
and {since they are
engaged
36
all
WORK AND WORSHIP

the time in kicking-education) they proceed
to
kick
it
simultaneously.
;
Either
of
three
things happens
the ball stands

;
still
and no
ball
running can be done
or
the
simultaneous
impact so stiffens the otherwise resilient

kicking can be done
is
that the kickers break their toes and no more

;
or the ball bursts.

it
This
all a fantastic
supposition, but
helps us in
a familiar and graphic
way
to disentangle the
simple elements of a situation.

it
We
see from
unchecked individual development if could lead nowhere. Our life permitted it kickers realise this, and call a meeting at which they decide unanimously that no further kicking-education is possible under the cirthat
cumstances.
light
flashes
across
them
and
when
the meeting closes they have divid-
ed themselves into two sets of friendly rivals who engage to supply one another with
the
necessary
opposition
to
develop
their
powers.
Within
the group there are sub-
groups for the distribution of opportunities for

kicking and running, and the whole activity
is
focussed
the mere matter

the putting
and guided by an aim beyond of kicking and running of the ball through the space

between two standing
sticks.
37
And
at the end,
the losers give three cheers for the winners and the winners give three cheers for the losers,
happy for, lose or win, all are gainers. The merely disruptive operation of individual kicking and running has been [to glance again at certain dictionary meanings of the word culture) refined, that is, lifted
and
all
are
to
a higher level, and improved, that
is,
given
higher
value
and
all
the prowess of each
player has had the double satisfaction of giving
good
to
himself and
co-operative
the others.
The
activity indicated in the
foregoing instance
ively continuous
is
made
stable
and progressof certain

'
by the formulation
mutually acceptable rules whereby

the
men
play
game
'.
larger
life
legislative
These rules are parallelled in the of the world by moral laws and enactments which (though still far
of
from perfect) tend towards the provision means whereby all humanity may be able
adjust the fulfilment of their
to that of the
to
own
vital
community
as a whole.
good But the
point
which emerges from our hypothetical case in regard to the relationship between the
and the
drawing-forth process of education
38
WORK AND WORSHIP

culture, is this, that
forth, but at a higher
is
restraining influence of
culture also
level.
drawing
perfectly
developed
man
physically
may
but a
for
be only a menace to those around him
man whose power

is
of feeling
with and
as
others
developed
to the
same extent
of
his physical powers, will not need to be kept

in
check
of
by the external
against
pitting
equal
is
strength
his strength (which
the
method
stage
scious
feeling
of
control by force in the present low

life)
human
but will, without conthe
effort,
express
intermingling of
and strength, and this intermingling will lift what otherwise might be mere brute
force to the level of beneficent power.
This principle
of exercising a cultural control of
over the education
the relatively lower
human powers by
the education of the rela-
tively higher powers,
works all the way up from
the most material needs of the physical body

to the
highest response of the soul

of the
from the
hunger
flesh that seeks to absorb all
else into itself, to the
hunger
of the spirit that
seeks to be absorbed in the Self of the universe.
So much for the first aspect the vital in what we have referred to as the composite
39
make-up of the human being, phases through which the desire of Piirusha defines itself in
recognisable forms of activity.
of the vital
The education
body
the
(that
is,
the cultural control
of the necessity for
nourishing the body and

is
continuing
race)
performed through
systems
of
physical culture and hygiene and
codes of morality.
These systems and codes
are shaped by three interacting influences in

addition to the ostensible
aim
of the nourish:
ment and continuance of the body

desire to attain the
for all
;
(1)
By
maximum
effort
to
of
enjoyment
best for the
(3)
(2)
By an
mind
and
the
satisfy the judg-
ment
dimly
of the
as to
individual
felt
what is community
By
consciousness of an individual (un-
dividable) unity that
makes cohesion
and rivalries
possible
among the
life.
diversities
of surface
Now
itself
each of these shaping influences
is
medium
hunger.
for
the satisfaction
of
the
Each demands education (drawing forth) and each requires cultural control which, we have observed, is exerted through the drawing forth of a higher activity. The first hunger is vital, the second is
cosmic
40
sensational.
WORK AND WORSHIP

The nerve-body, which is the sensation, demands its own nourishotherwise
it
medium for
ment and
satisfaction,
will fall into
disease, and the diseased condition will not remain in the nerves only, but will communi-
cate itself to the other parts of the composite
human
being
for the
nerve-body stretches
its
multitude of hands from the deeps of the vital
nature to the lofty verge of the spiritual consciousness.
There
is
a world of
homely injunction There is also a world of aphorism " There is no Yoga without health ". A healthy nerve-body will put its wearer into a happy relationship with the world through the gates of touch and taste, sound, sight and smell, and that happy relationship will reflect
:
to " laugh
wisdom in the and grow fat." wisdom in the Indian
itself
itself
in
good digestion.
It
will also reflect
in greater clearness of
mind and thus

from the
just
open the
way
to richer incursions
higher levels of one's being.
The
five nerve-gates to
which we have
touch,
referred
education
sight.
are
the
fivefold
taste,
subject of sense-
smell,
hearing and
ence
Through them we receive the experiof pain which may by education be

transmuted into a higher form
41
of pleasure
through them
of education,
we
receive the experience of
pleasure which, without the cultural control
may by
over-indulgence lead to
pain, decay
and death.
The
first
three senses
(smell, taste
and touch) notwithstanding the
important part which they play in
human
life,
have seldom been thought of until recently as requiring education, and have been allowed to develop themselves haphazard and with no conscious relationship to culture. Yet a
cultivated sense of smell could be a valuable
adjunct to
human
evolution by enabling people
to recognise the to well-being.
presence
of
things dangerous
In Japan in olden times there
was some
ties of
recognition of the aesthetic possibili-
smell in the holding of competitions in
the identification of the ingredients in various
kinds of incense.
Unfortunately the sense of
smell in Japan has not been developed in other

directions,
and tolerates odours about houses

shatter the senses of foreign
cultural education of the future
that,
which
will
at first
visitors.
The
it
see to
since
nature takes the
trouble to produce odorous shrubs and flowers,
humanity
will
have the grace
to fit itself to
42
respond
to
WORK AND WORSHIP

nature's purifying invitation, and
will definitely take
up the education
of the
sense of smell.
Much
India
it
the same
may
be said
also of taste.
vitiated.
All over the
world
taste has
been
In
has been vitiated by the use of strongly

of
salt
pungent flavourings and

in excess.
and sugar
The
delicate flavours of the simple
foods that nature has provided for frugivorous
humanity are smothered, and even when their arrogant enemies are absent, the sensibility of the palate has been degraded to such an extent that it is incapable of recognising and
enjoying
the
true
flavours.
Outside India
land inside India also) this vitiation of taste
has
been
accomplished
through
the
use
of flesh
foods
which
to
not
only themselves
possess enslaving tastes but call for the use of

strong
horror.
condiments
mask
taste
their putrefying
cultivated
(which
tang
of
is
quite a
different thing
from an acquired
flaming
taste) could
not
tolerate
the
distilled
alcoholic liquors
liquors.
at
or the sourness of
of
brewed
is
Lack
culture in this respect
the root of intemperance in both food and
drink.

Touch,
tessori
too,
43
must be educated.
The Monthis in size
method does something towards

by
touch.
teaching the recognition of shape,

quantity
and
But
the
the
education of
touch will go
not
limit
much
to
further than this, and will

fingers.
itself
The whole
its
peripheral nerve system presents

schooling.
aesthetical
claim for
There is a world of possibility of enjoyment through the feeling,*
power
of the feet
but this
is
unrealised in
countries
which equate
of
dirt),
civilisation
with the
wearing
stockings (and the generation of
sour odours and
and
it is
unrealised in
India through exposure producing insensibility.
But taking the hand alone in the case of most people its power of perception by touch
;
is
limited
to
a few crude external qualities
such as hardness and softness, roughness and

smoothness.
bilities
But there are immense possithe sense of touch in
of extension of
the discovery of subtle gradations of tegument,

in the detection of obnoxious elements, say, in
the binding of a book that

to
make
it
unpleasant
handle,
is
though pleasing
to the
eye
and
is
.there
at
power
of a far
deeper kind that
present the precious possession of a very
44
WORK AND WORSHIP

people
few
scouted
by
the
ignorant
serious
and
en-
pseudo-scientific, but
known by
quirers into the latent powers of humanity
the
power sometimes called psychometry, which is largely an extension of touch into a

beyond
life
'
region
physical
qualities,
region
which
will add a
vast territory to conscious
human
when
children
are
encouraged
'
(before the
shades of the prison house
of
negation and materialism are cast over them)

to
perceive by touch not only the body of an

but something of what
I
object,
shall call
by
the dark
name
left
of its spiritual history.
We
are
with the two senses
of
hearing
and sight as the channels between the outer world and the inner consciousness which are
the almost exclusive subjects of sense-education.
Yet
it
is
hardly true
to
say even of the

all.
ear and the eye that they are educated at
They
are used, just as hands and feet are used,

for purposes of physical
mainly
body
is
well-being;
but they are not specifically trained, as the

in
for a
physical culture
and their use

a lower level
mainly
purpose which
is at
than themselves keeps them from the cultural advantages which they might gain and give

if
45
is,
they were intelligently educated
that
developed to their fullest capacity in cultural

partnership with the mental side of
nature.
human
As
it
is,
not merely
is
the develop-
ment
power
of
hearing and sight restricted largely to

transmission
lower than aesthetical enjoyment, but their
tampered with by The eyes of the prejudice of the lower mind. a man of culture like Mr. William Archer
of
is
have been so twisted and made so rigid that a South Indian temple is to him only a mass of
ugliness.
John Ruskin could only see monstrosity in an eight-armed Hindu figure. An Indian, to whom the figure of Sri Chamundi was the height of artistic beauty, confessed to me that a Celtic design (which to me was a
piece
of
exquisite
to
arrangement and colour)

be crude and barbarous.
the Ravi
appeared
him
to of
The oleographs
used for divine
Varma
I
press are
carefully
worship in India.
'
preserve two of them as

of
horrible examples
bad
art.
It is
the
Indian
devil
of
curses
a
of
same with hearing. An piano for making such a

'
noise,'
because the simultaneous

in
sounding
strict
two or more notes (though

to
harmony
western ears] bewilders the
46
WORK AND WORSHIP

But he loves a shrieking babyto a
untrained ear.
harmonium which
musical westerner
is
not an instrument of music but of torture.
cultured English lady of musical tastes regards
Indian singing as caterwauling, which means

that she is offended not only by harshness of
tone to ears which have learned to rejoice in
sweet and smooth sounds, but by the sounding of minute intervals which bewilder her ears
that can only intelligibly hear semitones.
There
tions
is of
course a considerable amount of
mental prejudice involved in these contradic;
nevertheless, out of
my own
experience
and thought, I emphasise the fact that much of this mental prejudice could be broken down
by the specific education
of sight
and hearing.
The
foundations of true seeing could be laid in
childhood by the wise encouragement of the

natural love of children for pretty and coloured
objects,
by letting them find their own temperamental affinities among good reproductions of pictures from all countries, by giving them wide opportunities for clay modelling
(without limiting the
number
of
limbs they
being or an
may
choose
to
put on a
all,
human
animal), and. above
by putting them in

close association with flowers as flower-arrangement
is a
47
and
plants,
even
recognised part of
education in Japan
limited to girls.
unfortunately,
however,
Similar opportunities should
be given for the cultivation of hearing.

in all
And
such education there should be a perpeof
tual
atmosphere
pleasure,
an
increasing
encouragement to the students to find and possess and exchange the things that give
them
that
forth,
delight.
is
Thus
of
will love for the beauty
undistinguishable from truth be
drawn
and a race
artists
be evolved
who
will
not talk of eastern and western art as of
two eternal enemies but as obverse and reverse

of a
divine coinage current the world over.
Uncultivated dabblers in painting and music
draw
lines of justification
around their
all
own
narrownesses, but the coming true lovers of

the arts will have a welcome for
tions
of
the varia-
the central impulse to
limn some
of
feature or
express
some
quality
the one
Divine Personality.
CHAPTER
IV

2.
Mental and Spiritual
In the foregoing chapter we saw that the complex nature of humanity is but a departmentalised reflection of the
ancient Asian
'
desire
'
which an
'
scripture declares to be
'
the
nature of Purusha
the Universal
of
life,
Spirit.
modern
takes the
is
poet
(Shelley in
" Adonais," v. 43)
same view
all
the urge onward which

natural and
observable in
human.
"
He
speaks of " the
One
Spirit's plastic stress
which
Sweeps through the
ling there
dull,
dense world, compel-
All
new successions to the forms they wear Torturing the unwilling dross, which checks
its flight.
its own likeness, as each mass may bear And bursting in its beauty and its might From trees and beasts and men into
To
the
heaven's
light.

These
lines
49
were written
'
forty years before
the publication of Darwin's
Origin of Species
(1859} and the alleged discovery of the theory

of
evolution.
They
indicate
the poet's inLife
tuitional recognition of the
One
which
of
has always moved before the open eyes

world's
scientist
the
seers,
and
gave
to
which the Victorian

biological
ratification.
but
The poet
towards
visualises the
its
Cosmic Desire moving

through " the
dull,
satisfaction
dense world " of crude matter (the mineral
kingdom of science), the vegetable kingdom (of which trees is a synecdoche), the animal and human kingdom, into the world of spiritual
'
'
illumination.
This succession
is parallel,
on
the cosmic scale, to the fourfold nature of the
human instrument through which Purusha,

the Divine Epicure, seeks the satisfaction of His hunger the vital, sensational, mental
of
and
vital
spiritual.
The mineral kingdom

the universe;
sensation
is
is
the
body
is
the vegetable
kingdom
and
the
human
kingdom
body; the animal the mental body

is
(dual on the cosmic scale as
on the individual scale)

is
manas the kingdom
dual
of light
the spiritual body.
50
WORK AND WORSHIP

Where
the poet differs from the scientist
is
in seeing the evolutionary succession not as a
movement from rudimentary beginnings

'
'
in
a physical basis of
life,
'
but as a response to
the
'
'
plastic
'.
stress
of
one
superphysical
['
Spirit
The
dross
')
stuff of the
is
universe
the un-
willing
transmuted by what
cultural
we
such
have
called
the
urge
into
semblance
to that
urge as the various aggrega-
tions of the cosmic stuff allow.

slated into consciousness.
Pain
is
tran-
Consciousness rises
(and not
is
higher and higher.

but
all
Man
man
alone,
the kingdoms of nature)
created " in
the likeness of
God ".
This
is
the vision that

to education,
gives certainty to hope,

stability
wisdom
and continuity
to
action, grace to the
arts, dignity to life.
In the previous chapter

vital
and sensational
we thought of the aspects of human activity.

of the
Let us
now
is
consider the mental and spiritual.
The predominance
education
ever,
is
mental element
in
often criticised.
not that
there
is
The flaw, howtoo much of the

little
mental, but that there
is
too
reinforce-
ment from the
vital
is
and the sensational.
physical body that
not functioning healthily

will not permit the
of
51
most healthy expression

Nerves, which are the
jarred will produce
the inner Thinker.
bell-pulls of the soul,
when
not a harmonious chime, but the din of "sweet

bells jangled, out of tune
and harsh ".
Man
is
mental being, and in his

can
(as
own mental world
has been demonstrated in psychical rebut so soon as a relationship
search) live independently of his physical in-
up between him and the sensible universe, he enters on a phase of activity which puts upon
struments
;
is set
him the duty of so developing and using his means of communication between inner and
outer that they will receive and give with
rapidity, accuracy
and disinterestedness.
full
We
senses.
considered (in the previous chapter) the

the
necessity for
education of the five

the
We
emphasised
need for the
training of the sense of smell (to refer here to
only one of the senses) as smell, as a function

capable of giving joy in
tion not
its
exercise as a funcit
merely for what

of the
can add
to
our
the
knowledge
gases.
nature of plants or sewage

this plea for
But while making
education of the senses as students in their own

right,
and not as mere victims
of vocational
52
training,
WORK AND WORSHIP

we
do not overlook the fact that
unless the mental co-operates with the sensational

of
and the
vital,
there can be no education
any kind,
for all activity is realised in con-
sciousness.
Physical culture
is
reduced in
effectiveness to the
extent that mental atten-
An Asian " Anugita," sets out the relationscripture, the

tion to routine exercises is reduced.
ship between the
mind and the senses thus
Mind
says
The nose smells not without me the tongue does not perceive taste ; the eye does not take in colour the skin does not become aware of any object of touch. Without me the ear does not in any way hear sound. I am the eternal chief among Without me the senses never shine all elements. like an empty dwelling, or like fires whose flames are extinct.
; ;
Hence
of the
in Indian thought the
mind
is
regarded
as the sixth sense, the antahkarana or coherer
system.
Culture involves continuity
continuity involves
memory by which
to
to
carry
the
cultural
is
experience
higher level.
There
a certain
power
of
mechanical me-
mory
of
in the cells of the body.

is
Some degree
it
consciousness
involved, but
level.
does not
The craftsman can only remember as

rise
above
its
own
fingers of the fingers

;
they

cannot remember for the ear.
53
But the memory
which is one of the functions of the mind, remembers for all the instruments of the mind. Hence in trying to understand and improve the instruments of culture, including the mental instrument, there must always be an interrelation of thought with sensibility and action.
Thought, which
is
by nature
cold,
must be
warmed
in action
at the
;
hearth of feeling and corrected
which belongs to the torrid zone of the human sphere, must be modified by the cool breezes from the pole of thought. Action which is related to feeling only, may
feeling,
be merely destructive
related to thought only,
may
be cruel.
is a
should aim
sufficient
which education balanced co-ordination and if

ideal for
;
The
mental attention
is
given to action
and
feeling,
the education of the
mind
in the
cultural sense will proceed with
little
trouble.
The expediting
degree
ligence,
of
of
the powers of observation,
retention and enjoyment will evolve a higher

aesthetic
sensitiveness
and
intel-
and react beneficially on the formal

of
and informative side

fulfilment,
mental education.
of
But our cultural process will stop short
our educational schemes remain
54
inadequate, fourth
WORK AND WORSHIP

if
we
of
fail to
take into account the
aspect
our composite nature, the>

called spiritual,
aspect
which we have
is
which
world
in
the individual parallel to
of illumination
" the
and the cosmic

"
stress
heaven's light
plastic
which " the one
Spirit's
finds ultimate repose both individually and
cosmically.
satisfaction
Here the Cosmic Desire
finds in nocos-
in
;
Itself.
It
can find
it
thing lower.
Cosmic desire can only have

and the reflection
being
at
is
mic fulfilment
of life in
of this
law
the
human
rises
the dissatisfaction
which dogs mankind

consciousness
to
every step until the

it
the point at which

all
realises its unity with
beings and with the beings are rooted.
One Being
in
whom
;
all
When
this point is reached, the attitude of the

is
individual
reverence
the impulse, devotion
the direction, aspiration.
The
cultural process
;
has passed from

est
tillage to adoration
loborare
orare
this
end
all
work and worship are one. To life moves through its seonian
labours.
In the end there is the realisation of the truth that " there is no small and no great
in the absolute ".
But the way towards that
vision
is
through the relative universe from

stage
to
55
stage,
and the seers
of all
ages and
lands have set these stages in the order of
approach toward the simplicity
of unity.
The
Bhagavad-Gila (Book
says
III,
Arnold's rendering)
The world is strong But what discerns it stronger ; and the Mind Strongest and high o'er all the ruling Soul.
; ;
Here we have the

and
vital,
sensational, mental
spiritual aspects of
human
nature set out
in their order of progression.
But while
mental wind
there
are
this progression
is
the ultimate
order of spiritual progress (even as the fundais
from the poles

variations
to the equator),
of
many
expression
produced through interaction and circumstance

(even as the fundamental wind
earth
is
altered to
the northeast trade wind by the rotation of the the trade wind is altered to the winds on the sea-coast through the heating and cooling of the land). A knowledge of such variations and of the types thus
diurnal
and
produced should be
before
of
value in the application
of stimulation or repression in education.
But
let
considering
set
of
such types,
four
us complete our study of the
aspects
56
WORK AND WORSHIP

looking at certain
features
by
belonging to
them.
Each
of
of the
'
defined phases of the
'
desire
Purusha
has a special form of activity, a

of
activity,
special
direction
and a special
shall tabulate
:
characteristic of activity.
We
them
as follows, and then
examine them
Phase
57
A
is
person in a state of pleasant excitement

expansive, and imparts the stimulus of his
pleasure
to
own
others.
is
This inward and
outward movement
action of the
the systolic and diastolic
Cosmic Heart.
Let
it
be here emphasised that the lines of
our tabulation are not impenetrable steel or
insurmountable
inheres
in
barriers.
The
four
phases
are phases of one activity.

their
Their existence
interdependence.
There
could be no physical existence without a super-
physical
basis.
There could be no super-
physical activity in the physical world without

a physical form.
The ocean
throughout
of
it
Divine Energy
the
super-pro-
has interfused
toplasmic substance which ultimately becomes the means (and the limitation) of the Divine
Activity.
Every physical atom has involved

a super-physical tension (" the one
plastic stress ")
within
Spirit's
it
which
acts as a trans-
muting power bringing matter back towards its original state of pure simplicity. This is the basis of the old alchemy. From this point
of view,
cultural education should
aim
at
the
refining
and simplifying
so
of the
instruments of
Purusha
that
they
may
allow the spirit
58
WORK AND WORSHIP
within to answer the Spirit without. Cultural

education, therefore, cannot be a complicated
overloading of the mind, but a simple process

of
release
of
of
the
spirit.
The mental
will
of
phase
fulfil
the
human
entity
seek to
itself
it
through the hunger
understandits
ing
will move outward with
analy;
tical
its
if
microscope and tube and scalpel

activity is not
of aspiration
but
deeper purpose will remain unaccomplished

its
tempered by the spiritual
hunger
drawing
all into itself in
recognition and love.
The
vital is the spiritual
in bonds: the spiritual is the vital released.
The
vital appetite is spiritual aspiration in its
lowest
form
spiritual
its
aspiration
is
vital
appetite raised to
highest expression.
Both
drawing elements towards it for the satisfaction of the lower self which makes for disunion and struggle the spiritual drawing all towards it for the satisfacact centripetally, the vital
;
tion
of
the Higher Self
which
makes
of
for
union and repose since that satisfaction can

only
be
reached
by
transcendence
the
sundering personality.
teristic of
The
is
nutritive charac-
the vital activity
but the synthetical
characteristic of the spiritual activity in terms

of
59
of
material limitation.
is
When
the
truth
these considerations
realised, ideas of right
and
acts,
wrong move
away from
credal
and
dogmatic approval or condemnation
of specific
and apprehend a simple test of direction as the true moral law. Does an act tend
towards
personal
the
self,
transcendence
self ?
all
of
the
lower
of
towards the expression
the
higher
impersonal
then
it.
it
is
in the
path of virtue though
the Mrs. Grundys of
the world rage and tear against
The
business
of
true education
is
not to
elaborate
codes of conduct, but so to orient

still
study (and, what in
more
vital,
the attitude
of the teacher) that the general direction of
education
cultural
is
towards the
spiritual.
The
true
curriculum
provided
for
the vital,
of
sensational,
mental and spiritual needs
the
composite pupil will consist

subjects from the earliest
of the following
years not
to
in con-
secutive
order
of
application
the
four
phases, for these are coincident (though at the

several
stages
there
is
preponderance of
of vital appetite
appeal, children having
more
than
of
spiritual aspiration), but arranged in

:
concentric degrees of fulness as age advances
60
WORK AND WORSHIP

hygiene, art-crafts, natureplastic arts, music, science, philosophy,
arts,
Physical culture,
study,
literary
religious
exercises, meditation,
renunciation.
in their
At the child-level these will be
simplest form
philosophy,
for
ex-
ample, consisting in the development of giving

reasons for action, renunciation showing
in the
itself
happy sharing
of dainties and pleasures.
Reading, writing and counting will be learned
with ease and pleasure as accessories

natural curriculum.
to this
And now, with
full
mind,
we may
con.sider
a set of expressional types such as the true

homoculturist will delight in recognising and
helping to expression.
certain
action
variations are
of
We
have stated that

the inter-
made through
the four phases of our complex
humanity.
The fundamental
variation arises
individualityj
sonality).
from the interaction of the deeper nature (or and the outer nature (or perthe human nature " The soul that
is
The
individuality
central
rises
thing in
with
us,
our
life's
star,"
of
whether
it
comes
or
is
fresh from
the hand
the Creator,
generated from
the lower kingdoms by the

a series of
process of evolution, or through
61
reembodiments. The individual enters life with

a certain bent or characteristic
this bent
;
but between
and
its
fulfilment physical heredity
and environment
may
interpose obstacles.
highly sensational instrument
may
be played
upon by a controlled
tual
spiritual ego
and produce
the glorious word-music of Shelley.

individuality
spiri-
operating
through a
vital
personality will produce religious orthodoxy.
A mental individuality expressing itself through

a
sensational
personality
will
restore
the
romantic
spirit to literature.
We may tabulate
shown on
the types produced by this action of the individuality through the personality as
the next page.
shows the particular discipline, or Yoga (way to union) according to Indian tradition, which is most
line
of
The bottom
the table
appropriate
expression.
to
each
is
of to
the four
groups of
That
say, each group, for
the perfecting of
its
itself,
will take naturally to

ritualism, for
own
to
Yoga.
Romance and
itself.
example, will naturally seek for personality on
which
bestow
expedite the process of fulfilment by
The teacher can know-
ledge and application of the appropriate Yoga.
62
WORK AND WORSHIP

But where, on the higher levels
is
63
it
of culture,
necessary to repress for the sake
of balance,
then the illuminated teacher will employ one

or other of the other Yogas.
this
The working
of
method
is
seen in the effect which a deep

a
attachment for
good
person (such as love for a

a
woman
or
child)
has in making a
grossly appetitive
man
give up an evil habit.

set
There are sub-types

one
of
up by the action of
the ego-types through combinations in
personality, such as the vital-sensational, vital-
mental,
etc.,
but
it
is
not necessary to
work
these out in detail here.
The
seer
highest
to
is
aim
of
the
homoculturist
should be
produce the perfect being
the
and a
who
not only psychic, but intelligent,

artistic taste
and with intelligence has

healthy body
ary,
;
the aasthetic-intuitional-visionaim the

arts
the
highest type of practical idealist.
In carrying out this
must
find a
more extensive and
vital place in
education
than they do to-day, for they stand as the true
communicators between the outer and inner

life.
They
are
more
specifically creative than

activities,
the other mental and emotional

therefore
and
come
close to the cosmic
movement.
64
WORK AND WORSHIP

not bind.
They do
many
a
to
whom
title
the
They release. There are word freedom bears only

;
political
connotation
of
but
poet
Schiller,
of
who
earned the
the
freedom in
century and a half ago, in his " Letters on iEsthetic Culture " wrote as fola
Germany
lows
of the
comparative claims
of politics
and
aethetical culture
The eyes of the philosopher and the man of the world are turned full of expectation towards the political arena, where, as is believed, the great destiny of man is now developed ... If I suffer Beauty to precede Freedom, I trust not only to
it
accommodate it to my inclination, but to vindicate by principles. I hope to convince you that this
matter
of
assthetic culture is far less foreign to the to the taste of the age ; nay, more, that in order to solve this political problem in experience, one must pass through the aesthetic, since it is beauty that leads to freedom.
wants than
In
other
words,
to
aesthetic
culture
is
not
simply a means
taste,
the gratifying of cultured
but a need for the achievement of
human
a
freedom.
the
of
lies
is
Goethe
to
also
regarded culture as
way
freedom through providing

for the true
of us.
way
expression
humanity which
Politics
encumbered within each

concerned
with
divergent interests
violence
in
and
leads to inartistic
emotion and

action
;
65
con-
the
arts
are
concerned with
lead
to
vergent
interests,
and
harmonious
co-operative activity.
CHAPTER V
THE UNITY OF ART

In
the
work
out
of
reconstruction
to
which
is
crying
today
the
pioneer souls of
of
humanity, the arts must occupy a position

greater
prominence than they have done in Their nature is such that they bring the past. into life a fuller expression than perhaps anything else can bring of the two qualities
necessary
to
real
progress
the
the
of
quality of
elasticity.
conservation
and
quality
These are the complementary elements in the evolutionary process which, in their interaction,
life,
allow the cultural urge, that animates

to
all
find
expression in forms of gradually
ascending responsiveness, purity and beauty.
The
artist
creative
element in
all
true art puts the
in sympathetic touch
with the urge
to
which is behind all the advanced movements in human society but

freer
expression
THE UNITY OF ART
67
the intuition of the artist apprehends the inner

unity of the diverse expressions of the arts,
and the practice

artist,
of the artist
brings a healthy
recognition of the value of limitations.
The
faced with a technical difficulty, does
not
sit
down and lament

differently,
that oil and water

of
behave
and that he, a lord

of
creation, has to adapt himself to the conditions
imposed on him by the nature

creatures.
inanimate
True, the
Least of
all
will he destroy paper
because
artist
it
does not act like canvas.

to his
bends his materials
purpose but
the objective of his purpose has itself undergone
modification to meet
what the
his art.
artist
knows he
is
can and cannot do

in
at the point
where he stands
His success
the
evolution of
compounded partly of joy in the surmounting Every work of art is to an of limitations.

extent a
tour
de force
spirit
and
life,
under the
adventure,
influence of the
of
artistic
need not be a thing for peevish complaint or explosive rejection, but can take on the happy
and stimulating character

phraseology calls a stunt, a
of
what American
performance.
into edu-
jolly
The
cation.
play-spirit is slowly
coming
By and by
it
will find its
way
into
68
life.
WORK AND WORSHIP
wider
vital
;
contact with art will but

It
expedite
not
of
of
the process
merely spectacular.
a
must be vital, must not consist

it
weekly
visit
to
a
to
picture
gallery, but
daily
endeavour
create
pictures
on
paper and
in plots of
ground
not walking
round
a statue in a
museum,
but creating a
is
pantheon in clay or snow.
Creative art
the
reflection of the creative urge in the Cosmos.
That urge is the tension in every atom. Close it off at one level, and it will find a way out at another. That is why the provision in schools
of
means
for
arts
expressing the
creative
a
urge
through
and
crafts
is
prophylactic
against the male misuse of the creative urge at

a lower level.
The
joy of the
of
artist
is
the
personalised
human form
'
the joy of the
Divine Artist.
'
In Asian thought, the actithe play of Brahma,'

'
vity of the universe is
the
dance
of
Shiva,'
the leela (song)
of
Krishna'.
"The firmament showeth His

.
. .
handiwork
All
Day unto day
uttereth speech."
of
these
figurative
expressions
the
Divine joy in Cosmic activity imply a variety

of of
forms commensurate with

that
activity.
the
vastness
The Great Game needs
THE UNITY OF ART,
'
69
different
many
players playing the
game from
directions.
The
goal
may
as
of each, but the activities
be one in the will and rules are many,

valuable
as
and
the
opponent
is
the
of
colleague.
life.
The
if
artist
acts
on these laws
is
Even
and
he or she
not conscious of
them
canvas,
their
implications,
they
work
secretly in every
stroke of a loaded brush on
which
brings
together
of
tell
in
creative
oils,
companionship a democracy
earths and
the
five
fibres,
timbers that could
the story of
continents.
In the materials of his
from religious intolerance, colour prejudice, racial egotism. He imposes no conscience clause and no poll-tax on
art the artist is free
his
brushes or his paints.
He
;
accepts the
variety
this
which enriches
of
his art
and when
its
acceptance
variety
finds
way
life of
fill
through
tion,
art into the life of the
younger genera-
and through them into the general

'
the future,
national
interests,'
which
so
much
to
space in the heads of publicists, and lead

will
in
disintegration,
be transformed into
variety
human
which
interest
God's
is,
interest
leads to integration,
harmony, respect,
culture
happiness.
True
art-culture, that
70
WORK AND WORSHIP

is
which
artistic
because of
all
its
recognition of
the inner unity of

in the richness of
human activity, rejoices variety in human expression.

mutually enriching
And what
arts of the
a treasure of
interest in varied yet unified expression the
world hold
for the study of the

of
new
European and Asian art for the illuminating purpose of comparing fundamental their external differences and
generations
similarities.
the study
Half of the pleasure of cultured

lies
life,
or more,
in the exercise of comparison,
from the
putting
together of things so remotely con-
nected with one another that their mention
produces the incongruity which

laughter, to the
logies of
is
the basis of
making
of
those subtle ana-
word, incident or idea through which
we
rise to
deep root
some degree of inner vision of the of being from which springs the
But
beauty and variety of God's blossoming.

in the exercise of this
power
of
comparison,
its
with
its
enrichment
of
memory and
exhila-
ration of the soul with the expressed juice of
the grapes of wisdom,
we
must,
if
we
are to
experience the fullness of aesthetic joy, cast

out
all
thought
of
exclusiveness or separateness
THE UNITY OF ART

in
71
any
particle of
the substance of our com-
The infinite variety of Creation, over whose fields the gleaners of beauty pass,
parison.
gives full scope for the exercise of every tem-
peramental bent in the selection
of ears of
corn
and the manner in which
to
bind and stack
them for ripening in the sun or under the moon and stars but our natural favour to;
wards our own sheaf, must not blind us to the

of
its
colour and shape,
fact that
corn
is
cornstones
thin, pale, self-depreciatory
among the
;
Connemara
in the
west
of Ireland
plump,
robust, full of strength
and self-assurance in
the well-watered lowlands of the Seine valley

in France, but
still
corn.
The
first
essential to full
enjoyment
is
of
any
study in the arts of the world as an aid in

the process of homoculture
a realisation of
the truth that
when we
speak
of
Indian paint-
ing (for example), or Japanese, or Western,

shall
we
dis-
perform no worthier task than the

of
secting
the rainbow
and the setting
of
if
colour against colour in unnatural enmity,
we
allow any assumption of complete
self-
sufficiency and rivalry in school,
quality to dominate our thought.
method or There is no
72
WORK AND WORSHIP

itself
Indian or non-Indian painting conceived as a

thing by
;
there
is just
painting
that
conspiracy of hand and eye and brain to track

the secret of the visible universe to
there become captive to
its lair
and
what has been capturparticular
ed;
that
urge within a
type of
creative
to
mind
to
achieve self-realisation and

self
;
realise
something beyond the
that
activity of the artist
whose
joy
is
the rebuild-
ing of the universe with the innocence and

self-forgetfulness
of a child remoulding his " world nearer to the heart's desire " out of
the
perpetually re-forming
and perpetually
dissolving sands of the seashore
the
it,
artist for
whom
nature,
as Shelley put
is
" not a
picture set for his copying, but a palette set for

his brush ".
We
is
should be far from satisfying, however,

(of
the artistic urge in nature
which our own
but a reflection)
if
our realisation of the
central unity of the painter's art led us merely
hands of Art of one size and quality of brush and the setting of her eyes to one point of view. Nature has put the sun high and uncompromising in the skies
to the putting into the
of the tropics in
order that those
who would
THE UNITY OF ART

read her heart
blaring
of
73
" crimson
may be driven by the his shawms " into the

whose
table
is
refuge
-of
the
twilight
laid
with the
half-lights
exquisite
odours and savours of and shadows and the deep and intimate invita-
tion of the starry darkness.
She has
laid
upon
the temperate lands the deprivations of
autumn
and winter, bevelling the days down to the edge of night until men, in their hunger for
illumination
and
of
warmth, have learned
to
chew
little
infinities
nourishing beauty out of
precious mouthfuls of sunlight.
Upon
of
life,
the
contingencies
and
necessities
which Nature grants to us for the disciplining of our chaos into some reflection of hidden
orders of beauty,
we
build our preferences.

of
Time, familiarity and the sense

mately
ownership
Ulti-
harden the preferences into prejudices.
we may
mistake for the rock of truth
and perfection certain things in our thoughts and

feelings that once
were merely
floating timbers
life
shed from the proliferating forests of

are
and
now
petrified in the waters of our
own
inertia.
But whatever be the and

the
Deities
of
light or darkness
of
our intellectual and emotional atmosphere.
Nature
Art cannot be
74
WORK AND WORSHIP

in
thwarted
cularities
their cosmic labours.
Through
our narrownesses they will accomplish partiof

;
achievement only possible within

beauty
is
boundaries
the
of
of
definition of the
titanic
running stream which

generalisation
beyond the
;
the ocean
the thin sweet

itself)
whistle of the wind (dumb of

finds lips for its otherwise
when
it
unheard music
call to
in a
cracked
spirit
leaf,
and utters the luring
the
which the braggart thunder would vainly " struggle and howlat fits " to imitate.
Thus does Nature
justify
by use the
little-
nesses of greatness and genius, without which

constriction
its
special revelation
of a great-
ness beyond
itself
could not
be elaborated.
must therefore concede to the creative artist his and her moments of enthusiasm and dogma, when the flame leaps up " blind with excess of light " when the wheel of the imagination moves so rapidly that it sweeps into its vortex the artist himself, and those
;
We
with
eyes
capable of passing beneath
the
exterior of things into the burning centre of
the artist's being might well exclaim, '" Who is the potter, pray, and who the pot ?" for the
personal has wholly yielded
itself
up
to the
THE UNITY OF ART

super-personal, the worker and his
75
work have
become
artist,
one.
Afterwards, at the end of a day
of creation, reflection in
may
supervene, and the

of
the satisfaction
measure
of
accomplishment,
may
throb
with a
far-off
repercussion from that day on which another

Artist caused the dry land
to
appear above
the waste of waters, and at the end of the day " saw that it was good ". Then the mood of
the solitary peak steps
down
to
the level of
the valley, and enters into that salutary com-
munion
of heart
and brain with other climbers

is
towards the skies which

the bases of the hills of
only possible at
life,
and impossible on
of the spirit
the summits save in lightnings which flash
from peak
is
to
peak in a code
which
not yet current even
interpretation.
among the masters of Then the creator, becoming
awhile the
critic,
may
discover that the solitary
peak
is
not a thing apart from the mass of the

its life,
good earth and
but an elevation and
subtilisation of the general substance
and con-
sciousness,
turning of the flatness of the

life
common
horizontal
into the visible per-
pendicularity of high purpose.
The
artist, in
the ascent of his peak,
may set
his face towards
76
WORK AND WORSHIP

;
aloofness and narrowness
but in the descent
therefrom, with face outwards towards infinity,
he will bring to us of the lower levels the inspiration and large sanity of extended
view.
It is
because of the
artist's fluctuation bet-
ween
of
all
that is implied in these
two points
peak
of
view
(the ascent
and descent
of his
creation) that he is not seldom a contradiction
broad-minded
bigot,
a provincial univer-
salist.
His
own
safety and peace of
mind
lie
in his acceptance of his
own
artistic prejudice
as simply one singularity in the plural

of
number
of
God's
grammar through which He has

the
uttered
fundamental
prejudice
the
all
universe, a prejudice so rigidly imposed on
within
its
sphere of influence that not even

all
the moon, for

will
the prayers of her lovers,

rut and for once travel
move from her

to south.
from north
squirrel had a
The mountain and the quarrel," as Emerson reports,

of
"
but the squirrel settled the matter by making

a
compromise
recognition,
though in a
negative form.
If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut.
THE UNITY OF ART

It is
77
as
much, perhaps,
as one can expect

this
from
an ordinary
squirrel,
concession
it
(turned into positive terms) that while
is
the business of squirrels to crack nuts,
it is
the
business of mountains to carry forests on their

backs.
But a succeeding generation
of squir-
rels (and
human
beings including artists) will

of seeing that, but for
grow eyes capable
the
mountain, the squirrel would have no nut to

crack, and that the vast inertia of the mountain, dull
and lumpish as
it is,
is
the relatively
stable thing against

rel finds elasticity.
which the foot of the squirThe other side of the matter
(which future mountains also

is that,
may learn
to see)
but for the services of the nut-cracking
squirrel (and all his kin) the
mountain
in a
few millennia might

protective
later
find himself without his
forest
lift
cloak,
and a few millennia

head
and
might
to of
bald
naked
shoulders
tion
the laceration and disintegra-
sun and wind, rain and snow and

be admitted that the dull mountain
drought.
Let
it
has
its
place and
work
in the
scheme
of things
as well as the nimble squirrel.
Let the same

various cults,
be admitted likewise
of artists of
78
WORK AND WORSHIP

of non-artists at various levels of apprecia-
and
tion
appreciation
it
which stimulates to creation, and of miswhich provokes to criticism. Let

is
be admitted also that, while prejudice

culture
usually the offspring of

artistic
is
ignorance and pride,
itself
only
glorified
prejudice
more
it,
self-conscious, self-explana-
tory and talkative
way
of
surveying
it
life
from
all
one corner
ly,
of
and dealing with
according-
with
false truth
and true falsehood and

to the
the paradox that comes out of our position as
simultaneous heirs
double estate of the
eternal and the transient.

All the arts reflect
some ray
life
of
the Truth,
otherwise they could not
exist, for there is
no
not
fragment
of
the
universal
that
is
related to the whole.

is
On
the other hand there
can completely " the Truth, the whole truth and nothing reflect but the truth " ; for " our little systems " are
art or
of art that
no
phase
lines of pitiful logic lines
drawn around
a sphere,
which take on
a sense of completness
and
assurance
the
tail
;
when
when
the head succeeds in biting
but some of these lines cut across the
pole,
and
they pride themselves on

at
having touched truth's absolute north, are
THE UNITY OF ART

that
sides
79
all
very
;
moment
facing the
south on
to
and some run merely parallel

progress,
one
another and translate
word
mere motion into the apparently not knowing that

to its destruction.
Mr. Chesterton has said that the thing that merely progresses moves
All
the
arts
are
untrue,
;
part can express the
the
to
whole more untrue the more they

that
inasmuch as no and they become
the illusion
try to live up " art should be true to

artist
nature
and
life ".
No
of
ever yet saw

;
Nature in the fullness
her truth
he cannot
being
be true to that of which he has only a frag-
mentary
comprehension.
No human
every yet lived life in its fullness. To see life steadily and see it whole is a poetical impossibility invented by the late Mr. Matthew
Arnold.
We
cannot see
life steadily,
because
is flux.
life itself is If
not steady.
Its
very genius
the Lord of the World ceased His cosmic
dance for an instant, the sun would stagger

dazed into annihilation, and
him.
all that
hangs upon
And
yet,
if
we
do not catch
the
some
suggestion of stability behind
perpetual
movement
aright.
of life,
we have
not seen anything
We
cannot see
life
whole, because
80
WORK AND WORSHIP

life
our personal
tions pass
is
inexplicable save in relalife
tionship to an environing
whose
ramificaof
round our own street corner out

trail their
our sight
orbits of
and
antennae beyond the
Uranus and Neptune. our eyes tell us. what beyond

can do better.
We cannot see
A
dead camera
We
cannot hear beyond the
crude noises that our rudimentary ears catch
up the surf of sound that deafens us to the music of the spheres. " Our hearing is not hearing, and our seeing is not sight," sang
Lewis Morris the Welsh poet. And yet, if we have not caught come hint of the fullness that enspheres us, some glimpse of the " divinity that shapes our ends," we have not seen
or heard at
all.
This
of the
is
why
the path of
human
culture,
from the cave-man's rock-scratched drawing

reindeer to the latest school of painting,
is
strewn with the debris

renaissances.
of cults
and
movements and
school,
School succeeds
new
rise
and out of the works of art which the impulse sends across the sky of culture
a
still
in a trajectory
of of
whose fall is crossed by the newer impulse (as the rising
curve
romanticism in English poetry crossed
THE UNITY OF ART

the
81
descending
curve
of
classicism,
and
impressionism in painting crossed in

sionism),
a
its fall
the path of the soaring rocket of post-impres-
few
masterpieces survive,
not
because their particular cult was any more

true than
its
predecessors, but because they

to
were wholly true

mortality
their cult.
Artistic im-
does not come at the call of the

self-right-
slovenly or the egotistical or the

eous.
of
The
true conservatism in art
a radical
abandonment
to
comes out measure of one's

"
darkness and crooked vision.

his
it
He
that loseth
life
for
life
My
sake and the gospel's shall save
unto
eternal," said a Master of

;
Wisdom;
Spirit of
disciples
yet that
gospel
to
Truth was
life for
it
was incomplete the come and guide His
into all Truth.
He
that loseth
his personal
the sake of his artistic gospel shall save

the
through
changings
of
the future by
realising the truth that every

in art
is,
new movement
wrongly.
in the nature
of relative things, but
new way
of looking at things
CHAPTER
VI
THE FOUR DEGREES OF ART

Once The a time the son of a Brahman died. father in his grief went to Yama, the God of the Dead, and begged him to return his son Then the but Yama would not give him up. Brahman went to the God of Life, Brahma, and asked him to get his son back from Yama. This was impossible, as already the son in his after-death existence was no longer what he had been. But Brahma, for the father's comfort, offered to give him a substitute. This the father wisely agreed to accept, whereupon the God of Life instructed the bereaved father
This upon
is
how
the art of painting began.
how
these
to
make colours and to make an image
brushes, and with

of
his
dead son.
When
nal
the father had thus re-created in exterof
form his own mental image

into
it
his son,
life,
Brahma breathed
the breath of
and
the image became a living being.

There are two basic truths embodied
ancient Indian
83
in this
myth
one, that the impulse to
expression in the arts comes, not from the
reasoning
or
feeling
sides
of
our complex
nature, but from that side
Divine within
us, the creative.
feeling are modes of art,

deities
which reflects the Thought and not sources minor

;
who,
to
if
permitted to usurp the autho-
rity of the true creator, degrade art
on the one
hand
cold didacticism, and on the other to
sentimentality.
The other truth (the ignoring of which in modern art-criticism leads to much confusion
of
is
thought and loss
of illumination)
life
is,
that art
neither a reproduction of
it,
nor a commen-
tary on
but a substitute for
it.
These two truths are obverse and reverse

of
a single deeper truth,
that the urge

human
of the
Divine Artist within his

in this outer
instruments
world cannot be
satisfied
with
the inartistic redundancies and trivialities of
the
thing
called
multiplicity
and must transmute and complexity into a simpler

life,
thing on a higher level.
It
is this
power
of
transmutation that
of the true artist.
is
the distinguishing
artistic act is
mark
an act
Every
84
of
WORK AND WORSHIP

renunciation of the claims of the lower at
the call of the higher.
When
the
Brahman
father renounced his attachment to the son of

his body,
Brahma gave him

of
a fairy changeling,
an offspring
nature
the higher functions of his

not the physical
spirit.
the
imaginative,
art, vivified
moulded by
life,
by the
is
When we
we
say that art
a substitute for
do not
mean
The
To
that the pursuit of art

is to
either in creation or appreciation
take the
place of living.
will
necessities of our being
drive us into associated action with our
fellow-beings.
artist
even
the most devoted

life.
his
art
is
not the whole of his
Decently draped household virtues will hang

invisibly about the boldest canvas of the nude.
bank-book has been
known
to lie
without a
blush beside the palette of a great painter.

Life
may
at a
pinch indeed hobble along withlife
out art, but art without
not at
all.
Art
is
bound
to life as
much through
the dinner table
of the artist as
through bis eyes and hands.

attitudes to life
There are, however, two one (which is less a conscious

detailed activities of
life,
attitude than an
unconscious necessity), our absorption in the
when
our eyes are

blinded
85
large
by
multiplicity
;
against
the
generalities of art
the other,
when we
with-
draw
better
to
a distance
of
it,
from
life in
order to get a
view
as the artist steps back
from
his easel the better to see his picture.
It is in
these times of withdrawal,
when
life
ceases to
be our business, and becomes our pleasure,
when
comic
to
the
man
of
figures relaxes even to a
song,
that the Artist within
us gets
is
work.
Every
of
act
of
recreation
an
opportunity for
creation;
and
we
miss the
if
grand purpose
both
a
life
land art
in
such
moments we
stage,
mere copy and allow the mimicry

set
of life of
on our
realism to
usurp the creative function.

Creation, physiological or aesthetical, as our
Indian
myth
implies,
does not
come of the
is
body, but by the body.

his
son.
No man
parent of
He
is
only an instrument for the
creative purpose in the universe.

is
Every
of
child
in the
most real sense a child
God,
who
itself
is
the only Father.
Creation arouses feeling,

if it
but ceases to be creation

to
abandons
feeling.
is
Creation fires the brain, but the

fire, it is
brain
not the
only the brazier.
The
fulcrum
of creation rests
on the peak
of
human
86
WORK AND WORSHIP

but the hand that wields
it
consciousness,
is
the hand of
may
feel
Brahma the Divine. That hand its way down through idea and
to
emotion
sion in
to the level of realism, giving expres-
art-forms
the mental, sensational

life,
and
vital
phases of
but
its
habitat and
true sustenance are in the reality of the spirit.
A
of
purely realistic art

value
;
is
on the lowest level
artistic
is
that
is,
an art in which the
subject
taken from things

is
commonly
seen,
and the method

painting
that of faithfully reproduc-
ing the thing seen.
which
Some examples of European have recently been studying

be of this kind.
seem
is
to
me
to
They
are
excellently done.
In fact their chief challenge

;
to admiration for their industry and finish

is just
and that
the characteristic of
;
what we
the body.
may
call
physical art
art,'
its
appeal
is of
In such
however, one realises
that, in the
Wordsworth, " the world is too much with us ". There are no spaces in the landscapes through which we can catch a
language
of
glimpse
could
of
something
solid.
beyond
the
feel
body.
Everything seems
dig
You
fell
that
you
the
mountains,
the trees,
dam
the river.
And
this characteristic of solidity.

while considered the chief quality in
painting,
is
87
realistic
in reality only illusion.
Nature's
appearances are merely a thin painted veil
over vast forces in equipoise but ever changing

a
human
face
is
but a symbol of incalculable
experiences and qualities that

riously behind
it.
move myste-
landscape and a portrait

transcripts of one
that
are purely realistic
appearance, one expression, are

illusory stability
flux.
moments
of
in
the
midst of the eternal
At a higher level than so-called
realistic art
we
place that kind of painting which evokes
feeling
not
those vivid pictures with
some
emotional crisis as their specific subject, like

hysterical
theatre or
cinematograph posters.
Such
a picture as " Hero's Last
Watch
"
may
girl's
succeed in echoing the

heart in
anxiety of the
ours
but
less
great artist might
have inspired us with no nobler feeling than

that of destruction to the picture.
The
which
not
truly
emotional
picture
indirect
to
is
that
in
the
;
emotion
is
inherent,
that the
explicit
and
it
appears
me
"
paintings of the
new Bengal
school possess this
quality in a pre-eminent degree.
The End
88
of
WORK AND WORSHIP

the Journey," for example, by Abanindrais
nath Tagore,
not a picture only of a camel

at
is
proceeding to squat
desert journey.
sign of the
It
the end of a long day's
an outward and
visible
hear
it
camel's feeling. One can almost say " Thank God " in camel speech.
The artist has become identified with not a humped and long-necked beast as a subject for
a picture, but
with a camel as a camel, as a subthe
human comrade on
same journey
of life as
the artist on the long caravan route of evolution.
There is no sense of patronage of the animal kingdom by the human in the picture. There
is,
rather, a sense of equivalence, not in kind
but in degree.
This attitude comes spontanelife of India.
ously out the religious
It is
one
element in the contribution

the
of
psychology of
art.
In this
Hinduism to way, among

to shine into
of the
others,
the spiritual philosophy of the East
finds interstices through
which
less
the
substance of art;
the school
is
and the work no
juniors of
luminous than
that-of the masters.
This inherent and implicit emotion in the
modern Bengal paintings comes

through
their
to
us also
least
craftsmanship.
The

experienced in art-criticism can
guess East or
89
make
shrewd
West
love
at
what pictures are the

that
product of the commercial spirit and what are

the
product of
of
devotion
of
and
the
enthusiasm which are the characteristics

true " amateur " in
whom work
Something
electric
and worship
are one.
painters
is
Hardly
cold.
a line of the
modern Indian
of the creative
energy kindles them as

a wire.
energy kindles
There
is
another plane of art from which

the plane of idea.
it
takes a higher value than the bcdily and the

sensational, that
is,
This
value arises out of a power of co-ordination

that
of
is
not merely
in
the technical matter
light in
and shade, composition and colour,

but that brings subject and execuin
or
some gripping emotion expressed or

;
hinted at
tion
together
harmonious relationship
artistic
which produces an
degree,
its
unit of a higher
ratification being
beyond the
art,
satis-
factions of sense or feeling.
Here
clearly
too,
as
in
emotion in
the idea
involved in the picture need not necessarily be

articulate.
George
Frederick Watts
the English symbolist was a great man, and
90
WORK AND WORSHIP

clarity.
painted his great ideas greatly in solemn and
immutable
that
But
one stone of Bridge " has more idea in

composition of Watts
'.
venture to think Whistler's " Blackfriars

I
it
than any entire

a challeng-
It is full of
ing,
impish,
It
is
laughing
not a
yet
compassionate
be
intellect.
painting of a stone or
wooden
painted
:
construction
it
standing
in
quiet
to
is
reflection
space of the
mystery
to
of
the
human
procession.
is
The most
it,
important idea in the picture

speak, in the
outside
so
humanity which has passed across the bridge, even the bridge of death.
Impressionism here rises into idealism.
This
idealistic
quality
is
present in
the
work
modern Indian painters. It impressed me deeply in a monochrome on silk, " Companions of the Road " by Surendranath Kar, which I saw at the school's exhibition in January, 1918, and about which
of
almost
all
the
wrote as follows
:
in
"
The Renaissance
is
in
India
"
"
The
subject
in
perfectly simple.
A man
There
it
and
woman
peasant garb are walkplaying a flute

. . .
ing along a road, the

is
man
a vital unity
between the
figures, but
:
is
not labelled by look or gesture
it is
far

more
neither
subtle
91
it
and moving because
is
in
the one
nor the other, but comes
through both from an enfolding power beyond
The more one looks at the work them the more one becomes aware of a third invisible companion shephering two souls into the Then one becomes unity of the spirit aware of another companion oneself for with
. . .
exquisite genius the painter has turned the
backs
road
of
the travellers towards us, so that the
inner and outer eye go with them along the
to
nowhere
in the picture but to joy in
the heart, and
we
follow
them
as invisible
sharers in their companionship."
This art
of idea, in its
highest achievement,
moves beyond the

remote and
at
intellectual
realm into a
of
present
unfamiliar region
human
in
art
consciousness, and exerts an influence
which, while indefinable as

to
to
method
and subject, and more likely

stood
or
be misunder-
than not under such terms as mystical
visionary,
seems
to
me
of
to
be that quality
which, by the measure

absence,
decides
it
its
presence or
art.
the true rank of

quality.
We
term
may
call
the spiritual
it
Eastern
students
will glimpse
through the
92
WORK AND WORSHIP

is
buddhic (or intuitional) whose characteristic

unity in the highest.
I
It is this
element which,
think,
makes
all
the difference between art
between reproduction and revelation, between creation which is Godlike and craftsmanship which is human.
and
artifice,
During a year in Japan (1919
1920)
in
which
with
to
enjoyed considerable living contact
its
wonderful art in temple architecture,
painting
find
was interested some gradual slackening in my first

and colour-printing,
I
joy in colour and design

fection.
I
and technical per-
appeared to miss something else
that
would give that final ratification which puts an art beyond all question and I was
;
slowly driven
to the conviction that
Japanese
and
art has stopped short at perfection of skill
aesthetic
perception,
of
its
and has not since the
great days
pupilship to India through
China
and
to
Korea been disturbed by those

inner worlds that give
the
art,
incursions from the

instability
but at
same time give

largeness.
adventure and vitality and

feeling in
tion
this
My
to
of
respect found a curious reflec-
in a letter
I
from a friend outside Japan
whom
had sent a number of reproductions

Japanese pictures.
but not inspiring "
"
I
93
find
them
interesting
It is
the
friend
wrote.
just this lack of inspiration, of the

spirit,
urge
of the
that
have
all
felt
the absence of the

looking
of art.
inscrutable
face
that
should be
in
upon us through
Japanese
of
the
windows
art
has
is
achieved perfection in
not the ultimate quality
design, but design

art.
It
is
the business of design to

to
weave
of
exquisite
nets
ensnare the flying feet
Beauty, and hold

tions of life's
them fast among the fluctuacommonplaces but the highest

;
function of art
release
;
is
not that of snaring, but of
the setting free of the soul from the

of life in
entanglements
to the
order that
it
may
rise
level of
Beauty and become one with
her.
This release and uplift does not come through

technique
or
emotion
level, falls
or
idea.
It
springs
from a deeper
from a
loftier height,
than poetical feeling or gesthetical sentiment.
These excellent qualities in Japanese art are sometimes referred to by Japanese writers as
" spiritual," but that
word
is
treated
more
in
it
accordance with
its
ancient dignity
when
stands for the manifestation of a profounder
94
WORK AND WORSHIP
and more intense state of consciousness which brings with it an enlargement of realisation of our inherent imperfect greatness rather than
pride in our
little
perfections.
painting by Mr.
the Tokyo exhibition

Spirit of the
Yokoyama Taikwan in of Autumn 1919, " The
Plumtree," a
woman
after the
Chinese manner under a blossoming bough, is a piece of exquisite design and colour and
workmanship
artist.
is
It is
characteristic
full
of
that
master
it
of a delicate lyricism, but

It is
not spiritual in the large sense.

;
chaste,
as all real Japanese art is
as free
from the
a
seduction of the flesh as

tiveness of the
spirit.
;
it is
from the seduc-
We
we
see a
woman and
tree in blossom
but
are not perturbed by
any glimpse of the greater immortal woman who moves in that invisible garden where, as
Francis
.
Thompson
. .
sings,
Shall
flower and leaf and fall-less fruit hang together on the unyellowing bough.
of a spiritual art in the
We
be
cannot speak
as
same sense
specific
we
art.
can speak of a
realistic art
or an idealistic
Idealism and realism

of
art,
may
modes
but the
spiritual
element in
art is neither
method nor
subject.

It is
95
beyond posturing or textbook, and as safe from brush or pencil as our dreams are safe from the camera of the cinematograph man.
It is
felt as
a pervasive influence.
refers as
It is
that
to
which Wordsworth
motion and a
spirit that
all
impels
All thinking things,
And
objects of all thought. rolls through all things.
This " one

calls
it
it,
Spirit's plastic stress," as Shelley
is
not
created
by eye or hand
but
is
in
accordance with the ability of the

to
artist's
eye or hand
manifest that stress that
their
products in art are esteemed as only " interesting," or as inspiring.
The works
of
the Indian painters of the
new
school are vibrant with that " stress," not as

a self-conscious element of their
art,
but as
the natural unescapable disclosure of a race-
consciousness
that
keeps
nearer than
any
other to a living realisation of the
One Divine
his activity,
Being behind the diversities
of
who wears
Universe.
for
his pleasure the
Mask
of the
We
gather from the foregoing
considera-
tions that the value of art increases in propor-
tion to its revelation
of the
inner nature of
96
things
Spirit
;
WORK AND WORSHIP

and when
its
magic wand invokes the

of
it is
which sits at the centre becomes the true realism, for then face with the Reality on which all
life,
it
face to
else hangs.
We
get this real realism,
think, in the paintschool.
ings of the
modern Bengal
The
artists
of that school,
of
with the instinct and tradition
the Indian race, paint the earth as "the they paint a veil of Maya " or transitoriness
;
face as a shifting scene in

soul
;
the
drama
of the
and they do so with such mastery of the machinery of their craft that we forget the craft because memory, with its little prejudices
and conceits,
Ireland,
is
subjugated by revelation.
Our
attitude to their
work
is
that of the seer-poet of

:
AE,
to
the beloved
So in thy motions all expressed Thine angel I may view. I shall not on thy beauty rest, But Beauty's ray in you.
In
this
power
of
revelation, this faculty of

I
suggestion and
depth,
believe the
modern
Bengal painters have

in
lifted
the art of India to
a level higher than that of Ajanta.
They have
of
line, their
many
cases gone to Ajanta for their princi-
ples of modelling, their
power

subject-matter
;
97
but they have not put them-
selves in bondage to the theological realism of
the temple frescoes of fifteen hundred years

ago.
The God Shiva

figure,
of
the
is
;
frescoes
a
is
an
arresting
but he
more
he
is
well-fed
superman than
of
a divinity
the product
imaginative eyesight.
The Dancing Shiva

related
to
of
Nanda Lai Bose, though

personality,
the
Shiva
of the frescoes, is a personification of a
power beyond
mystical vision.
the
product
of
CHAPTER
VII
INTELLECT AND INTUITION IN ART

There
mar
detail,
is
grammar
of art as
well as a gramconsciousness in
of
speech.
Indeed one might define

of
speech as the expression
and
art as the expression of consciousness
in generalisation, both having certain natural
laws governing them, the gradual discovery of
which forms the history
of
the evolution of
human
The
culture.
artist,
says Pater,
moves towards
That
peris to
fection through a series
of disgusts.
say, the intuition of the artist
glows in the pre-
sence of some
before
artistic satisfaction,
and shrivels
of these
some
inartistic
flaw
and out
involuntary responses of the soul to the external kaleidoscope,
the intellect elaborates
its
grammar of expression; its substantives which name things as they are its pronouns which mask inartistic actuality or invoke the great
;

Reality;
its
99
symbols,
its is
metaphors.
Then,
with the arrogance that

the dictatorship of
of
twin
of
the sense of
separateness, the intellect proceeds to

art,
assume
a series
and
to set
down
conventional signals whereby the soul
may
not outrage custom by laughing or crying in
the
wrong
place.
From
and with
its
this
pendulous movement between art

history of art,
art-criticism proceeds the
gloomy hollows of intellectualism between its foamed crests of intuitional aspiration and revolt. The immortal Wanderer after the eternally elusive Beauty must keep to the high-road, however earnestly his robe's hem may be plucked by the squat fingers of convention that seeks a fireside and the undisturbed assurance and ease of familiarity. And yet we cannot rest satisfied with the thought of art as a mere nomadic mist. It
may
but
perform the paradox

carry nothing in
of finding its truest
nourishment in feasting on
if it
a divine
hunger
its
scrip
it
will
come
upon
starvation and a thinning towards the
place of shades.
Something
for its nourish-
ment must be borne along by Art-on-the-quest. And so it is. But that which art gathers on
100
its
WORK AND WORSHIP

way
is
not a
mere accumulation,
like the
wealth of the poor mendicant who swells his

clothing with his load of crusts, or of the rich
mendicant
who
unloads
it
it
in
bonds and banks,
and
true
so
makes
a double
burden on his
own
soul and the soul of others.
No!
art is the
alchemist
who
transmutes
the baser
metals of experience into coin of higher and
higher
melts
denomination,
and
great
at
each sunset
the
down
that
his day's mintings into a golden
drink
night.
gives
him
dreams
in
The wealth which
art has acquired
on the
way
Its
of its evolution is not exterior but interior.

is
wisdom
not invested [and so externalised
and
so
lost) in
books on
art,
but expended {and

art.
experienced and saved) in works of
Ruskin
critic
not
the artist but the professional art lamentable passage in " The Two in a
Paths," crucified and buried the art of India

sixty years ago
;
but Indian
art, slain in
South
half
Kensington,
reincarnated
less
than
Bengal in a school of artists century who are still athrill with creation's joy of adventure and discovery. These artists have learned (not from books which are out of date
later in

the
101
moment they
is
are written, but from the

of
eternally
modern whispers
of
the soul) that
the artist
the less artistic the

criticism,
on the shoulder
truly critical the
more he leans and the more

to
more he resigns himself

within the
artist.
the guidance of the hidden Creator.
For the
of
art.
kingdom
It
of art is
is
also
within the appreciator

of
Every work
a
spiritual
true
art
is
an invitation
to
marriage
not
;
as a
mere guest
and very sacred and blissful is the meetingBut the perfect marriage place of souls.
needs perfect affinity
is
not yet, for
and the time for that both art and art-appreciation
are careful and troubled
many
about things,
and neither has become as yet the perfect

listener to the divine Voice.
I
have
sitting
been
moved
to
these thoughts
through the apparently casual

of
circumstance
on the matted
floor of
my
me
Japanese
that
I
room
(the
February sun
telling
am
in the latitude of
the south of Spain, and the
sharp searching fingers of the wind making

it
known
that the blue lips
of
Siberia care
nothing for latitudes) and letting
my
inner
eye dwell on two pictures that
pinned in a
102
tidy
WORK AND WORSHIP
moment on the back of my sliding door. I was first startled by the discovery that the human figures in one of the pictures (a resilk)
production of a larger picture on
which
had originally appeared
to
be pausing for a
moment, had begun to walk, while the soaring

figure in the other picture (a photograph of a
statue)
had ceased
to
soar.
Then
my
mind
and I found ourselves in a stream of intuitions and thoughts that carried us to the realisation
that there is a
grammar
of art as
well as a
grammar
distinctive
of speech,
and that there are certain

through
modes
which
creative
vision seeks fitting form.
In one of these pictures a young

a-tiptoe
man
stands
with his face turned skywards.

in
His
arms are stretched
what
;
ordinarily would be
the attitude of crucifixion
but
it is
not cruciit
fixion that is intended to be conveyed,
is
ascension
the
eternal aspiration of youth or
the eternal youth of aspiration.

of flight is indicated
The element
to the
by wings attached
So excellently has the sculptor done that the outer eye in following the his flow of the wings conveys to the inner eye the illusion of motion and out of this almost
arms.
work
103
physical sensation rises the inference of ascension.

is
The
point
is
that the idea of ascension
an inference, and not integral in the work
of art.
to
The
out a
intellect is addressed
and invited
x equalof flight.
work
sum
in sculptural algebra,
ling youth, y equalling the
machinery
The
the
sculpture
in
is
the parallel, in form, of
symbolism
literature.
Two
things enter
separately, the business of each being " love is like the to reinforce the other.
mind
My
red
red rose " sang Burns, and each

for the juxtaposition
is
the the
more acceptable
other.
of
But in the mental space between the two things presented to the mind lies a dangerous
Burns had sung " My love is like the red red snowdrop " he and his reader would have gone down the abyss between
pitfall for
the
artist.
If
symbol and significance. Something like happens with this sculpture, only, because
great sincerity and beauty, the descent
gradual.
is
this
of a
made
Ascension
may
be symbolised by
wings.
set
A Greek
did
or Indian artist might have
them
as successfully on a figure of youth
But then the statue would have represented youth it would

as
Daedalus
on Icarus.
not have been, as this statue
is,
raw, naked,
104
WORK AND WORSHIP

being,
flagrantly youthful youth, a plain unvarnished
human
between whose realism and the

idealism of angels' pinions
so
conventional
challenging an incongruity appears that the

statue ultimately
comes
earnestly desiring to soar,
to stand for youth and being prevented
by his wings.
You
say
cannot, apparently, in art, nail symbolof
ism on the back

that
realism.
This
is
not to
realism
cannot be made to bear

itself.
significances
beyond
It
can,
as the
of
other picture shows.

realistic
But the achievement
symbolism belongs
art than the symbolical
to another mode of which separates the

;
elements in the figure of speech
it
brings the
elements together as one.

is
In literature this
called metaphor.
If
" constitution like iron,"

ally,
we say a man has a we speak symbolicwe

conceived say he has " an
;
iron
of
being
strength
the
;
separately
if
symbol
but
iron constitution,"
we
speak in metaphor
by
some instantaneous
thing qualified.
sleight-of-speech the figura-
tive quality is shot
through the nature
of the
In metaphor, whether in literature or the

plastic arts,
the invitation appears to be to a
105
deeper region of one's being than the mind.
The mind,
ways,
so to speak, looks at things side-
and
needs
space
for
movement.
Symbolism appears therefore to be an act of the intellect. Metaphor looks at things endon, sees through, not along, them; it is the
penetrating glance of the eye of the intuition.
Intellect sees the similarities in things
;
intui-
tion goes deeper
and sees their unity.

is
This intuitive, metaphorical mode
very
prominent
in the
work
of the
modern Bengal
It is
school of painting in India.
the natural
mode
of
art-expression
is
of
race to
;
everything
aspiration
inherently significant
not
to
to
which which
cover
does
mean wings
distances, but a simple closing of the eyes

stilling of
and
the
"
the ever-present Divinity.

painter
of
mind and immediate contacting of The young Bengali Companions of the Road " (the
to
second picture referred
above] did not travel
beyond the village

of
at his
of
door for his metaphor

the eternal comrade-
the eternal quest,

of
ship,
all
the enfolding Love that gathers up
things from the affinities of rocks to the

recognition
of
instant
souls
and leads them
towards some transcendent union.
He
" paints
106
WORK AND WORSHIP

it
the thing as he sees

as they are "
of things as
;
for the
God
of things
but the Indian painter's vision
they are goes deeper than sur-
faces
it
sees the eternal in the^human, and
Siva
and
Parvati
(the
Divine Father and

of
Mother) and Radha the comrade

the flute-plajdng
Krishna
God searching
for
one another
in the village companions.
CHAPTER
VIII
VARIETIES OF ART-EXPRESSION
1.
Racial, National, Doctrinal
have considered the essential unity of the arts. We have also considered the four
We
main
qualities
of
art-expression
spiritual,
realistic,
emotional,
mental and
which are
'
the reflection in art of the four phases of

desire
of
the
Purusha '. We have glanced at the intellectual and intuitional modes of expression. Let us now take a wider view of the varieties
of art-expression.
The
sical
sion are set
fundamental variations in expresup by the human instrument. Phyconditions reflect themselves in emotional
first
states
and mental
attitude.
A sudden emotional
off
crisis influences the poise of bodily functions.
compelling idea in the mind can stave
108
physical
WORK AND WORSHIP

hunger.
The
interaction
of
these
elements in
tion
human
nature, and their modifica-
by that deeper thing recognised as the develop and establish the typical expression by which outsiders recognise the
'self,'
special
character of the person.

takes place
similar
in
interaction
association.
of
between persons
individual
The tone
of a village is the
its
average
members. Within a wider circumference we have the typical physique of a nation (the 'American
the expression of
face'
or
for
example),
the
typical
national
stolid
racial
expression of feeling
the touchy Celt),
(the
Anglo-Saxon,
tive there.
the typical
mental attitude
scale
arises
matter-of-fact here, imaginaof interaction
Out
a
on
this large
co-ordinated
quality
which
becomes recognisable as the racial temperament. The Japanese touch in handicrafts is unmistakable
. .
are set
The second fundamental variations up by nature. The granite of South

.
India imposes conditions on the expression of
the Dravidian people,
its
hard quality inducing
constructional simplicity and surface decoration.
The absence
of
stone on the alluvial lands of

of
Bengal turned the genius
the people into
poetry and brick-building.
109
of
The sandstones
Britain gave scope for the Gothic elaboration

of form.
The volcanic soil of Japan, rich in power of growth for timbers, sent Japan into wooden temples with roofs like descending wings and pagodas of colour and carving Through this complex medium the creative urge of the Cosmos passes into the various
. . .
art-forms and finds the characteristic national

art
and
the
characteristic
its
quality
Greek
But the
is
sculpture with
Italian
perfection of physical form,

its
music with
with
its
gusty passion, French
literature
intellectual clarity.
unit of art-expression on the large scale
not
always
changes.
defined by geographical or political
boundaries.
The
passing
of
time
brings
The
split
Celtic race,
which once covered

national
entities
half of Europe,
religion,
and was roughly uniform in

off
into
as
diverse today in temperamental expression as
the
peoples of Scotland, Ireland and France.

political
and national entity
like India in-
cludes the cultural expression of both Hindu
and Islamic genius.

cultural
We
can also study the

a unity
expression of a religious unit such as
Christianity or
Buddhism and observe
110
of
WORK AND WORSHIP

doctrinal
substance
passing
into
local
diversity of form.
In the interaction of physique, emotion and
thought
on
or
the
a
cultural
expression of an
individuals,
individual
group
is
of
the
physical element
in
influence.
perhaps the least effective

influx of creative energy
The
may
be sufficiently
powerful
to
overcome
the other
physical weakness or inertia.
On
hand, physical strength

as artistic strength.
may
not express itself

of
The enormous temples

built
South
India
;
physique
were whereas
degree
by
hefty
. . .
men
of
light
the
architecturally unambitious
quality,
Irish were The emotional

sensibility,
or
of
aesthetic
decides the form of art and material through
which the cultural urge finds expression. The more intense an emotion is, the more
rapid
is
the
movement towards
its
fulfilment.
People under emotional stress act quickly and without full consideration. Emotional peoples
seek the shortest
Architecture
in
is
way
to collective expression.
stone,
and architecture in
words (which and patience.

stone both
the drama], call for continuity
Ireland has plenty of building
architecturally and dramatically
111
but she preferred gods and goddesses, fairies,

heroes, poets and story-tellers, and even after
twentyfive years of dramatic enthusiasm has

not yet succeeded in producing a
drama
of
Shakesperean dimensions.
of
The Japanese The
are
highly sensitive along certain lines to the point

assthetical
sentimentality.
creative
of
urge passes through a vibrant instrument

exquisite
little
short wave-lengths into small-scale handicraft,

perfections in
craftsmanship,
delicacy
of technique in of
painting, quavering
moments
cathedrals.
suggestiveness in poetry.
The
Teutonic genius loaded Europe with mighty
While emotion determines the form and

material of art-expression, thought decides
its
content, and the most influential factor in the
directing
of
a people's culture
life
is its
thought
be
concerning the larger

enfolding,
life.
which
is felt to
sustaining
and guiding the outer

visualised
The
Greeks
the
Supreme
manhood, and their art carried the human form to perGreek sculpture, though idealistic in fection. the limited sense of getting the most perfect
Power behind the world
as exalted
expression of things as they are,
was
in fact
112
realistic
:
WORK AND WORSHIP

it
humanised the
of to
invisible.
Where
indications
Divine office were wanted, they

the
the
were attached
(as
human form
as insignia
the
moon on
forehead of Diana) but
they never interfered with anatomy.

did not visualise
Hindu
;
thought operated in the opposite direction
it
God as perfect man, but man as imperfect God as Divinity in limitations. Hindu art, in its expression of the Divine
Power, did not expand the human form physically or aesthetically, but broke through it.
It
perceived bulk to be ineffective, as a small

to the
figure close
eye
may
subjectively be as
powerful as a large one

ing
at a distance. It there-
fore chose multiplicity as its
means
of
of indicatIt
Divine transcendence
limitation.
also chose
an idealised
figure,
human form
for the
indication of godhood
not
a beautification of
the
human
but a figure
as regards
human
its
in
general,
but built up,
details,
from models in the world of nature. The forehead and trunk of the elephant, for example, was taken as the paradigm for the indication of the shoulder and arm of super-humanity.
The
details
of this
idealised figure are

in his
given
by Dr. Abanindranath Tagore
113
'.
monograph
on
'
Indian
Artistic
Anatomy
Mr. Ruskin's description
of this art as grotesque,
monstrous, indicates the difficulty which a
mind vowed
in
getting
to realistic
representative art had
into
sympathetic
art.
touch with a
regard to
purely symbolical idealistic
Buddhist art in Japan,
realistic in
form
like
the
Greek, expressed Divinity in

in bronze plates at the
largeness.
The Buddha
Nara
is is
old capital of
the largest figure in the
world.
It
wonderfully impressive sitting
high in solemn simplicity in the great temple;

but the Buddha of
Kamakura (smaller but more aesthetically appealing] was still more impressive to the author when he saw it in its environment of nature in moonlight. This method of indicating spiritual eminence by size the Japanese
applied also to religious teachers.
A reproduction
of a portrait of Nichiren, the thirteenth century
Buddhist reformer, which the author possesses,
shows two
feet.
disciples of the teacher (socially
eminent persons) as small figures at Nichiren's
Muslim
religious thought put the

of sight
Supreme
but
beyond the range

it
and therefore outside

art,
the circumference of pictorial

8
what
the
renounced in concrete expression
of
114
WORK AND WORSHIP

it
inexpressible
got back in the abstract beauty
which
but
infuses its architecture.
form may not be in
God as visible the Pearl Mosque in Delhi,

Beauty
and Purity
slab of that
God
as
invisible
radiates
from every marble

for
most
exquisite of holy places.
So much
control
of
variations
in
art
set
varied expressions of the God-idea.

art-expression
is
up by But the
not limited to
personality.
Human
concepts of impersonal
universal law exert a recognisable influence.
Art based on the idea of a single human life ' a little life rounded by a sleep,' lays stress on the visible form, and strives after the perpetuation of things held precious.
Christianity and
religions,
Muhammadanism,
one-life
turned their cultural

in the world," the Taj
skill into
have glorious monuto
ments to the dead. The "most

the body of a beloved
beautiful building
Mahal, was built
hold
woman.
its
On
the other
hand, Hinduism, with

fire into its
doctrine of rebirth,
lays no emphasis on the form.
It is passed elements in through order that the recent inhabitant may be set free to pursue his
path to the spiritual realms and back again. Hinduism, therefore, has no tombs, and no
115
memorial architecture save monuments (such as those in Rajputana) to mark the spot where a
was released by fire from its last discarded body. Hindu temples are places dedicated to the
soul
one indestructible
ality
'
Life. Perpetuation of person-
is
achieved through association of the

'
deceased
with living
activities in charity. In
itself
literature
the single-life idea expresses
in the poignancy
and grandeur
;
of
is
Elizabethan tragedy
but there
Greek and no tragedy
in the Samskrit drama, because tragedy arises
out of emotional states based on mental ideas
and the idea

life
of reincarnation precludes tragic
emotion based on loss and catastrophe, since
and death, pain and pleasure, fortune and

are
all
misfortune,
transaction
counters in
is
spiritual
whose end
certain gain.
The
to the
foregoing paragraphs refer analytically

variations
in art-expression in certain
race.
groupings of the
human
wider study
than that which is possible in this book would refer to such sub-groupings as the various
European schools, and the various eras in Indian and Japanese art. On the other hand, to maintain the balance between unity and
diversity,
we
shall glance at a larger grouping
116
WORK AND WORSHIP

we have
touched upon, a group-
than any that
ing that takes us half-way back towards the
centre by drawing a meridian round the sphere
and western hemispheres. Eastern art is predominantly idealistic, western art predominantly realistic.
of art
it
and dividing
into eastern
To make
tion,
full
demonstration of this differentia-
that touches the observant student of the
world's art from a thousand angles,
would
require a volume with numerous illustrations.

It
will
this
serve the simply indicative purpose
of
book
to
refer here only to the art of
which the necessary materials are common, and in which a temperamental bent
painting for
will
find
the path of least resistance in the
choice of materials suitable to the expression

of that bent.
Originally painting
was used only
for the
decoration of architecture and sculpture even as

colour
is
used today
painting
it
to
embellish the elaborate
carvings on the wooden buildings of Japan.
When
took
still
up
an
to
independent
walls in the
is
existence
was
bound
form of frescoes. one which calls
This particular method

for
complete realisation of
infallible
purpose in advance, perfect judgment,
accuracy, immediate execution.
117
only attainable
the
level
of
Such skill is through devotion which reaches

religious
zeal
and through a
religious impulse
of
great art.
which has attained the level The cave temples of Ajanta in

Horyuji in Japan, the
all attest
India,
the temple of
cathedrals of Europe,
an impulse in
were one before religion became uncreative and inartistic and art became irreligious and commercial. Afterwards painting unloosed itself from walls. It
religion
which
and
art
took revenge, so to speak, on walls (for their
former
enslavement
of
painting
to
their
decoration)
by making walls mere backgrounds
for the display of pictures.
The
future develop-
ment
of
painting proceeded along two lines

oils.
painting in water-colours and painting in

Oil-painting
was discovered
in
Flanders in
1390, and after
much
in universal use in
controversy and test was Europe by the beginning of

Asia stuck to water-
the sixteenth
colour.
century.
We
oil
believe
it
is
more than fancy

speculation
in
to see in
symbol
of
artistic
and
in
to
water a symbol
of reflection
art,
and
connect these symbols with the temperamental
118
choice
eastern
peace.
for
of
art.
WORK AND WORSHIP

materials
made by western and

art
European
has never been

genius
at
The wheels
of its activity
Its
oil
have called
for
to its
perpetual
lubrication.
experimentation found in
fulfilment,
of the
means
since oil-colour permits of change,

of colour
superimposing
on colour, and
the attainment of effects and brilliancy which

are
the joy of
the speculative temperament.
Out
of this speculation
have arisen the various

romantic, prepost-impressionist,
art-sects of
Europe
classical,
Raphaelite,
impressionist,
futurist, cubist.
All this activity indicates the
positive,
aggressive, self-conscious stir of the
concrete mind
is,
of
intellectualism,
which
'
is
realism at the mental level.
Realism in the
truth to
mind and
nature
'
in art calls for clarity, for

to
it
[that
definition)
but
be
realised
that
what the eye sees with has come gradually to what the eye sees (as a
always an
to the
realisation
in consciousness) in not
exact reproduction of the image on the retina.
Likes and dislikes add subtle colours

inner picture.
Hence have
arisen (through
the adaptability of oil-colours to experiment)

the various European schools which, in the
latest
119
psychological phases, while
still
looking
forward
objects,
are as
through the eyes towards external much concerned with painting
how a thing is seen as painting the thing itself. These later phases of European art are, howWestern average ever, still in the cult stage. taste in art calls for the test of nature, even
as Leonardo da
fifteenth century
Vinci did at the end of the
when
just
the controversy over oil
and water had
ended in favour
of oil.
"That is the greatest painting," he said, " which agrees most with the thing represented," and his test of reality was the comparing of the
picture with the original object reflected in a
mirror. Ruskin, the apostle of realism in painting,
gives a realist's opinion of
oil
and water
in the following unequivocal terms In all the exercises of artists, oil should be the vehicle of colour employed from the first. The extended practice of water-colour painting, as a separate skill, is in every way harmful to the arts its pleasant slightness and plausible dexterity divert the genius of the painter from its proper aims, and withdraw the attention of the public from the excellence of higher claims.
Mr. Ruskin's quarrel with water-colour for " its "pleasant slightness and plausible dexterity
makes
its
full
revelation of the realist
mind
120
WORK AND WORSHIP

ask what are the opposed excellences which give oil-colour its superiority
that is
when we
to these,
serious solidity and solemn industry,

to say,
uninspired laboriousness.
essential charac-
These excellences are the

teristics of
mentality in art carrying labour
along a line
tion.
away from
the
moment
of inspira-
They stand
tightly.
cinders.
working in its own But inspiration and dexterity hold

for art
hands
of
They
are the flaming
moments
executive energy that rise out of the passi-
vity of contemplation
when
(the questioning
of the invisible
mind being
stilled)
some touch
Reality of the Spirit whirls the being to fusion
and instantaneous utterance which demands

dexterity
solidity.
and
"
chafes at the obstruction of

I
When
see
some
beautiful
and
suggestive aspect of nature," said Nanda Lai Bose to the writer, " I have a kind of pain
until
I
interpret
it
in painting."
Some
juxta-
position of nature (a
treetop against the
moon
seen in a contemplative walk) gives a glimpse

of the unity
behind nature.
slit
The Divine Visage

mask, and the
still
shines through a
in its
waters of the soul of the artist are troubled

until
they throw a white wave on the shore
of the visible.
121
Indian painting does not follow

;
the hunt of the eyesight after things seen
it
closes the outer eyes in contemplation in order
that the inner eyes
may
the
more
it
truly reflect
things unseen.
Indian painting reflects super;
humanity and super-nature

metaphorical, interpretative
a reproduction.
is
symbolical,
a translation, not
than Indian art;
senti-
Japanese art reflects nature

Its
and humanity.
its
contemplation has less of the
spiritual-idealistic
element
is
interpretation
more ssthetical and

' '
mental.
painting
:
There are no ideas there is no picture

is
in Japanese
of the
modern
Bengal school that
not the visible embodi-
ment of an idea. The question

teristics of
arises
How far and
in
what
Will
directions will the racial
and other characlines, or
art indicated above develop ?
they proceed along eternally parallel

will they converge ?
to
At present there appears
be a stop and with the stop the symptoms of
renaissance.
European realism has exhausted

dimension. Japanese sensibility
felt,
things seen, and thinks to find an extension of

itself in a
new
has exhausted things
and looks
for
new
sensation in the adoption of
western methods.
122
WORK AND WORSHIP
Indian symbolism has exhausted things thought
and is seeking escape from scholasticism by having direct recourse to the inner life in the
peace of Santiniketan.
of
Heretofore the spirit

itself in
renaissance has expressed
Europe
of
through individuality,
compelling genius
eras
;
through the birth
in
Japan through dynastic

attitudes
;
which enunciated new

little
in India
through religious revival.
In past times there
was very
only
inter-communication between
art.
these expressions of
Today there
but
is
not
inter-communication
school
interference.
The Bengal
Calcutta.
is
has arisen out of revolt
against the imposition of South Kensington on
as
The much a
the
westernisation of Japanese art

protective
half
anti-toxic
measure
of
against
threat
century ago
national obscuration as the adoption of such

civilised talismans as
bowler hats and knives

exerting her influence
and
forks.
Asia too
in
is
on Europe
music.
it
English literature and French

of renaissance is afoot, but
Its inspiration
its attain-
The
of old
It
spirit
lacks direction and afflatus.
came
ment.
from levels higher than
has risen to those levels, and
is
bewildered because the waterfall has not the
123
same
That
force
of a
at
its
top as at
is
its foot. is
"The
needed.
glimpse
height that
higher "
glimpse will not come with inspiring

art is a
power while
or
specialised luxury, the

cult,
craze of a narrow-eyed
the slave of mental
emotional
bigotry.
to
To
it
accomplish the
necessary that
of art to
needed return
freshness of purpose and

is
enthusiasm and naivete,

youth be restored
youth in freedom
to art to
by the giving
this
move
way
or that as
it
the wind of the Spirit bloweth where
listeth.
CHAPTER
IX
(2)
Local-popular
'
The Japanese
'
Passing-world
School
We
'
shall
now
'
turn to the consideration of a

art,
special
group-expression in
school
its
that
of the
Passing-world
of
popular
art
in
Japan which, by
definiteness of
its
characteristics,
and the
appearance and disappear-
ance,
provide a very precise unit of study/

pictorial art of
The
Japan
is
known
outside
Japan through colour-prints. The casual visitor Japan carries away with him, as a matter
mainly,
indeed
almost
exclusively,
to
of
tourist routine,
copies of the Great
Wave by
of
Hokusai, or of Fujiyama by Hiroshige, with
perhaps a few
first editions
by one or more
' For a similar study o group-expression in Indian art see the chapters on The Bengal School of Painting in The Renaissance
in India.
the lesser masters.
a
125
is
The
if
resident foreigner
man
of stern
purpose
he can
Yet
resist,
within
the
first
month
a
of his life in
Japan, the beginthis
nings
of
collection.
phase
It
of
Japanese art was purely ephemeral.

period
of less
began shortly before 1690 and ended about 1860
than two centuries.
It " stood
apart (as Okakura
Kakuzo
art,"
points out) from the
main
line of
Japanese
and
failed " to catch
the truly national element "
the
element
life
of
high idealism, which entered Japanese

art
and
with
the
incursion of
It
Buddhism from
Korea
in A.D. 552.
was looked upon with

by the Japanese in(which
considerable
disrespect
telligentsia, for the subjects of the prints
were
sold for a
gallants on their
few coppers in the streets to way to or from the courtesan

Their object was not the
enjoyment, but
life
quarters)
were
largely theatrical persons or
ladies of easy virtue.
provision of pure artistic
of
enhanced enjoyment of the sense

presentation,
by the
through the art
of the colourof
printer, of suggestive
images
is
it
reminiscent
pleasure.
Yet
its
(so
hard
for
for a people to
escape from
the
innate
fundamental characteristics)
aesthetic
genius
chastity.
126
WORK AND WORSHIP

is
which
of
one
of the
art,
Japanese
foreign
to
most marked features put its charm upon the

to
early
visitors
the country,
of
who
began
sellers,
make
it
collections
the prints.
This, though
was a surprise to the printwho were aware of the general pur-
pose of the prints,

it
may
be understood
when
is
observed that, whatever special pleasure
the Japanese roue of the time derived from

colour-prints of female entertainers and
actors,
it
was
so subjective, so remote
of
male from
(a
is
the
surface
significance
of
the picture,
colour-print
Japanese courtesan
as
modest in drapery and pose as a puritan's

daughter), that foreign
minds, which lacked
the Japanese complexes of suggestion, could

treat
the prints as pure
works
of
art,
and and
derive from
them the
special pleasures that

lines,
come from expert design, strong unique colour schemes.

These human subjects were
not,
however,
and birds,
the sole interest of the colour-printer's art.
Land and
and
the
subjects
sea, flowers, trees, beasts
moon
to
in
her
;
many moods, gave

but these [since they
all
the artists
are the
common
material of art in
lands)
have
of
127
not,
quite
naturally,
the same special
appeal to an outsider as the pictorial disclosure
human
life
personal appearance, manners

has,
of
and customs, dressing and housing.

the geographies
life of the people of
Japan of course, moulded the

;
Japan
but
it is
the people
of
Japan as presented in their art who have moulded the Japan of the world's imagination. To understand this phase in a nation's art
that
critic
was
not, in the opinion of a

;
Japanese
that
art-
(Okakura) truly national

;
was not
often
to
even fully respectable

nasty
;
that
was cheap,
-in
of
as
little
account
relation
permanent
to-day
artists
;
art as
Christmas cards in England
whose
creators
;
were not ranked as
but as artisans
we have to glance at the
phase in Japanese painting that preceded the phase of the colour-print. Having grasped the
circumstances that brought
it
into existence,
we
shall then try
to
understand the special

popular
in the aristocracy
qualities that
gave a transient and
movement a permanent place

of art.
In the year 1424 there
was born
a person,
to
Masanobu, who became an artist, and refused part with life until within sight of his
128
WORK AND WORSHIP
century (1520). Masanobu is the beginner of a line of artists under the distinguishing name
of
Kano (from the
place
where they began

;
their work)
who exerted
a controlling influence
for over three centuries
on Japanese art
it
but
according to the best Japanese opinion,
was
in
Masanobu's
son
Motonobu
(1477-1559)
whom
of
the special characteristics of the
new
school appeared
freedom from the element
monkish severity in the preceding age, a more dexterous refinement of detail and line, but with an observable fall in attitude and fire. The lofty and solemn inspiration of early Buddhism was dying down art was moving from theocracy
;
towards democracy, the intermediate stage being the gradual preponderance of nature in the
works
of
the
of
Kano
artists
of the
numerous
branches
the school.
The
extent of this
change in
of
attitude
may be seen by a comparison

Buddha
in
the wall-paintings of the
Hor-
yuji
temple
of
the seventh century, and the
picture of
the three sages (Confucius, Laotze
and
Buddha) by Kano-Yukinobu, the third

is
leader of the school (about 1580.)
But our present business

with the Kano school in
only concerned
bearings on the
its
subsequent popular school.
arose
tory
of
129
school
The Kano
in
the Ashikaga period of Japanese his-
(1400-1600) during which the influence

simpli-
Zen (dhyan) Buddhism chastened and

Japanese
art.
fied
This era
of princely culof
ture
was
followed
by an era
gorgeous
when military power of men of less refinement plebeian men who rose to princedom through the power of the sword, who surrounded themselves with a new nobility largely
vulgarisation in the arts
passed into the hands
composed of banditti and pirates (see Okakura), and who expressed the natural art-instinct of
their race through the phase of pride
and
self-
assertion in wealth of outer

of
show and poverty inner meaning, with some effort towards a

to
return
the Ashikaga
ideal
when
the great
founder
of the
Tokugawa
apposite
era, lyeyasu, rose to
power
in 1615.
forces,
to
Two
showed
life
our subject,
now
themselves: a close and systematic

of the
unification
whole scheme
initiated
which lyeyasu
genius
of
Roman
people.
for
Japanese with an almost organisation and the

of
;
realisation
democratic consciousness in the

to
Feudalism was beginning
show
130
cracks in
WORK AND WORSHIP

its
structure, through
which came
prophetic gleams of the fire of freedom which

in the middle of the nineteenth century burnt
it
to
the ground and
made space
for
the
construction of a
modern
pliable social edifice.
come to power, and the sense of growing power entered the consciousness of the people. The spirit of the time is described by Okakura (" Ideals of the
of the
A man
people had
East ") as follows

"
The age was
alive
with the
virility of a
race just awakened from sleep, evincing

but newly
now
. .
.
for the first time the naive delight of a populace
made free of the world of art The breaking down of social distinctions, which was brought about by the upheaval of the new
aristocracy,
permeated
art
with a
spirit
of
democracy hitherto unknown." It was at this time that the life

found expression in art.
paint the
Artists
'
of the
people
delighted to
'
common
scenes of
life
(Okakura).
Here we have the beginnings of the movement in Japanese art which developed later into the
*
Passing-world
'
school of colour-printing. But
this
development, which began in the early

century
as
seventeenth
the
spontaneous
expression of the democratic
itself in
131
defined
spirit,
the early eighteenth century in protest
against a reaction to feudalism.
The genius
of
lyeyasu Tokugawa for discipline reincarnated

in
his successors in
the seat of power.

strictly
All
national activities
were
she
regimented.
to-
Japan became
(as
is still
very largely
day) a land of regulations and uniforms.
Art
came
of
not
simply under
school,
official
patronage, but
under close
the
official direction.
The academies
which had been patronised by lyeyasu, now became government departments. Twenty such academies were in
existence,
Kano
" constituted on the plan of regular
feudal
tenures."
Okakura sums up the
situa-
tion thus
" Each academy had its hereditary lord ", (Kano master) " who followed his profession,
whether or not he was an indifferent had under him students who flocked from various parts of the country, and who
and,
artist,
were, in their turn,
official painters to different
daimyos
(local
chiefs)
under
the shoguns
(great barons) in the provinces. After graduating

at
Tokyo,
it
was
obligatory for these students,
returning to the country, to conduct their work
132
WORK AND WORSHIP

The
lords.
there on the methods and according to the
models given them during instruction.

students
in a
who were
to
not vassals of daimyos were,
sense, hereditary fiefs of the
Kano
Each had
laid
pursue the
course of
studies
down, and each painted and drew certain subjects in a certain manner. From this routine, departure meant ostracism, which would reduce the artist to the position of a
common
case
craftsman, for he would not in that

retain
be allowed to
the distinction of
wearing two swords." It may be mentioned also that the work of the Kano schools was mainly black-and-white and was distinguished by strong lines. Such was the position of art removed from the life of the people, with formalism in and inspiration dead. In another control
sense
also
than that
of
subject-matter
life of
art
was
removed from the

sense
of
art,
the people
in
the
popular
participation
in the
pleasure of
a pleasure deeply
rooted in
the Japanese nature.

official.
Official life
centred.
The
life of
Art was regulated and was regulated and selfthe people was regulated
the high honours of
and apart.
" Forbidden
the
court and
133
intercourse with aristocratic

in
society,
they sought their freedom
mundane
pleasures,
in the theatre, or in the gay life of
Yoshiwara [the
licensed quarters).
And
as
their literature forms another world from that

of the writings of the
samurai (military
caste),
so
of
their art expresses itself in the delineation
gay
life
and in the
at
illustration of theatrical
celebrities."
(Okakura).
their
Thus
the
people
found expression
spirit
own
it
level,
and the
they
single
of evolution
saw
the
to
that, since
of
could
not
afford
a
possession
masterpieces,
method should
be given to
them
this
of
reproducing their favorite pictures
was the method of wood-engraving. Wood-engraving had been practised in Japan for the illustration of books from the early
sixteenth century, but only in black-and-white,
and very crudely. This method was applied

the reproduction of prints
in
light
to
that
is,
of pictures
and shade as distinguished from line
drawings
1673),
by
Hishigawa
produced
Moronobu (1644art
himself a painter of the front rank.
The sumptuously
of
magazine
of
Tokyo, Kokkii'a, has recently reproduced some Moronobu's works, two of which, the path
134
to
WORK AND WORSHIP
the Yoshiwara, and a street brawl in the Yoshiwara, make an excellent contrast of his
in
power
vigorous
delicate
landscape work and in

delineation.
human
initiated
But
while
Moronobu
ation of the
credit
of
the
method by which
the foundlife
'
popular art secured

'
its circulation, is
school of daily
put to the the late
a disaffected
aristocrat of
sixteenth and early seventeenth century, Iwasa
Matabei (born 1577), through

of art got
whom
the spirit
once more in touch with democracy.

life of
He
and
of
painted pictures of the
the people,
earned
'
the
title
of the founder of the

'
Ukiyoe or
passing-world
school
the school
of contrast
Japanese realism in the sense
with the Kano and other
classical schools
and
the old schools of Buddhist idealism.
The turning
of
wood-engraving
to
the repro-
duction of colour-prints soon developed from
the black-and-white stage.
The
application by
hand
tions
for
of patches of colour both to
book
illustra-
and the new prints showed the desire

This duly came.
In
colour-expansion.
the time of Harunobu (born 1760), a century

after
Moronobu,
colour-printing
was
fully
developed.
century later with the death
135
[1858) of Hiroshige, one of the world's masterartists,
the art of the colour-printer also died,
slain
by foreign influences and aniline dyes.

later [1868,
Ten years
seclusion)
with the restoration

passed
of
the Mikado to power after a thousand years of

old
Japan
less
itself
away with
the abolition of feudalism, and the institution

a more or government and
of
representative form of
or less unrepresent-
more
ative
is
era of
chaos in art in which Japan
still
floundering.
The
Ukiyoe
school
flourished as a school of popular art for about
two centuries and a half, from by Matabei at the beginning

the middle of the
artists
its
foundation
of
the seven-
teenth century to the death of Hiroshige in
nineteenth century.
Its
numbered about three hundred, drawn, with very few exceptions, from the artisan class. Such of them as came into the Ukiyoe school from the classical academies
(Hosado Yeishi, for example, a samurai
who
studied in the Kano School, and flourished between 1780 and 1810] brought into the more or less folk art of the artisan-artists an element of refinement in subject matter, and delicacy of touch. The main work of the school,
136
WORK AND WORSHIP

is
however,
of
characterised by vigorous simpli-
city of line
accompanied in the figure-studies

design
Utamaro and others by marvellous dexof
terity
in
filling
spaces
with
convolutions of costume,
leaving
and,
per contra, in
spaces quite empty
when
they contri-
buted thus more suggestively to the purpose

of the picture.
It
will help us in our appreciation of the

of
its
qualities
Japanese colour-printing
technique
if
we
glance as
aesthetic
since
We
much
art
of the
pleasure
of
derived
from
from knowledge
artist
the limitations
comes which the
has
to
surmounted.
are referring
now
the original craft, not to present-day

scientifically
methods which are

of
more
ela-
borate but inferior in results, as a comparison
an
original
impression
and a modern
reproduction will show.
The
lines,
original
drawing (which was in black

artist's
with the colour-scheme in the

formj
equivalent to what
mind) was executed in S7imi (ground charcoal

in
call
liquid
we now
Indian ink) with /ude (the special form of
Japanese pencil-brush) on very thin and tough

paper.
This original was pasted on a slab
of
specially
137
planed wood [usually wild cherry),
and the outline was carved into the wood, thus
making a negative. The original drawing was consequently destroyed so that the word original,' applied to Japanese prints, means first impressions Some real original drawings exist because they were never
'
'
'.
reproduced.
Proofs were pulled from the original keyblock,
and on these proofs the designer
(often
his pupils] filled in the colours, one colour
on
each proof.
a
From
these dissected colour-proofs
set
of
wooden
slabs
all
was made
one colour,
first
one
slab.
When
were ready, the
was painted over by hand on the proper space. Paints were used, not inks, and the fixing medium was rice-paste. The paper was made from mulberry bark, and was damped before the impression was taken. A number of copies were taken off the freshlycolour-block
coloured block by hand-rubbing or sometimes
with a
soft pad,
and kept in their order.
This
the
consecutive order
was maintained through

degree
of
impressions
off
the succeeding blocks, so that the

colour in each
uniformity
in
complete
print
was secured
uniformity
138
WORK AND WORSHIP
which would have been lost if, for example, the sheet which got the first impression off block number one, got the sixth or twelfth
impression
off
a succeeding block,
one being
full coloured,
the other thinner.
This process
meant the utmost skill in all its stages. There was no entrusting of any part of it to a machine run by an unintelligent hand.' Each of its trinity of operations was presided over by an
'
artist-deity, the designer, the
block-maker, the
print-puller.
Colour-printing
was, therefore,
from
first to last, a
pure handicraft.
With such a method, the number of blocks was necessarily limited. A simple snow-scene by Hiroshige required fourteen blocks. The more the blocks the larger the cost of the prints and it must be remembered that the Ukiyoe School was a popular school, that
the prints cost the

thirty sen (six annas),
all
man
in the street about

artists
and that the
men
first
of
humble
station
and means.
were There
by masters so famous to-day, that a single copy of a print would change hands for probably as much
are
editions so rare to-day,
money
as the designer earned in several years
This restriction in blocks meant a simplification
of
139
design
the
achievement
flat
of
effect with-
out shading, in
spaces in various planes,

of
with the
one
maximum
eye-inference from per-
spective and difference in size.

if
For example,
of the
of Eisen's
(1789-1848) pictures oi geisha
is
covered except the
lower portion
costume, the exposed portion will be seen as

a
piece of garment hanging
in vertical folds.
But when the whole

a
of the picture is looked at,
house
of
at
the
top corrects the eye,

is
and the
end
out
the garment
seen to be lying spread
on the
ground.
Another point in the
process of simplification in the original Ukiyoe

prints
the absence of shadows and reflections. Lafcadio Hearn in his essay entitled " The " Stone Buddha " in the book "Out of the East
is
(1895) points out this feature.
He emphasises
strangely,
!
the
surprise
which one
"
gets on first seeing
Japanese colour-prints.
curiously,
How
how
is
these people see nature " one
inclined to exclaim. Yet afterwards, he asserts, one feels the picture " more true to nature
than any western painting

could
of the
same scene
of
be
that
it
produces
picture
sensations
nature
"
no
western
could
give."
The
colours,"
he says,
" though magically
140
vivid,
WORK AND WORSHIP

are
seen to be the colours of nature

the picture
in
Japan
yet
has a 'ghostly'
effect.
Now
of
this special effect
comes from the
absence
skill
shadows
artist
in Japanese pictures.
The
The
of the
with his colours so

same, but
satisfies
us that
we
do not miss the shadows.

it is
light is there, all the
infiltrated
through the entire picture, not cast angularly

as in
the realistic art of the West.
Be
it
nevertheless observed that the old Japanese

loved shadows
made by
the moon, and painted
the same, because they were weird and did

not interfere with colour.
But they had no
admiration for shadows that blacken and break

the charm of the world under the sun.
their
When
noonday landscapes are flecked by shadows at all, it is by very thin ones only mere deepenings of tone, like those fugitive run before a summer half glooms which
cloud." " And (Hearn adds) the inner world as well
as the outer world
Psychologically
also
was luminous for them. they saw life without
Here we have an interesting hint that sends the mind questing after parallelisms in a nation's art and life. But Hearn here
shadows ".
takes us no further than the hint^
141
save what
West
inferences
we may
after the
care to
gather from his
catalogue of imported shadows from the
which came
Japan in 1853 at the request of America when Japan " paid to learn how to see shadows in nature, in life, and in thought " " shadows of machinery and chimneys and telegraph poles, shadows of mines and of factories, and the shadows in the hearts of those who worked there shadows of houses twenty stories high, and of hunger begging under them;" and so on.
of
opening
" Fortunately for the world," he adds, " she
returned
to
her
first
matchless art;
returned to her
of
and,
fortunately for
beautiful
still
herself,
own
faith.
;
But some
the
shadows
clung to her
rid of
to
them.
and she cannot possibly get Never again can the world seem
it
her quite so beautiful as

general.
did before."
So much on the " Passing World " school
Each designer, within the limits of his craft, had his own peculiarities in choice of subject and expression. Harunobu scorned all actors and specialised on women.
in
Koriusai (1760-1780)
made
pillar'prints
twenty-
seven inches long and five wide.
Kiyonaga
142
WORK AND WORSHIP

(1769-1819)
revelled
in
slate-blue,
(1742-1815]- attained fame with his triptyches.
Shunyei
apple-green
and rose-pink.
Utamaro (1754(as
1806) created a Japanese

tional
woman
convenin
in
proportions as the
figures
the
Ajanta frescoes), with long thin neck, enormous
and complicated
slit
coiffure,
narrow shoulders,
mouth.
Yeishi
eyes and
miscroscopic
(1780-1800) loved a pale yellow background.
Yeizan
lost
himself in elaborate costume design.
Hokusai
ence
of
(1760-1849)
and
Hiroshige
(1796refer-
1858) were the great landscapists.

to a recently
Some
published volume on the
work
the latter by Yone Noguchi, the Japanese

will give us
poet,
an idea
of the material for
interesting and valuable study
which the
of the
life
and work
of
any
of the
masters
Ukiyoe
school present.
Mr. Noguchi
landscape
art,"
calls
Hiroshige " the most na-
tional landscape artist in
Japan ". " The western
the product of
he says, "would be called an environment because of its

splendidly
lack of a certain dash in abstraction or quintessences.
However
since
it
is
drawn,
it
will never escape from the details of incidental
phenomena,
it
is
always too closely
attached to
reality.
143
The general landscape
painting of the
picture
West ... is not like Hiroshige's where the individuality of nature is
suddenly seen isolated from the entire."

calls
He
Hiroshige
" a
discoverer
a natural
of
nature's
eccentricity,"
who saw
phenomenon
being
act in
" in
a striking special
it
isolated,
flatly
moment when, refuses to move and

phenomena
".
uniformity with the other
The
self
gist of this
comparative criticism
is
that
the western landscapist tries to identify him-
with Nature's
totality, to
be inclusive and
tries
realistic,
while the Japanese landscapist

to his
to
make Nature conform
own mood and
idiosyncrasy, to be exclusive and suggestive.
Mere
The
leaving out of certain items in a landscape
does not necessarily achieve suggestiveness.

exclusion
Hiroshige, only " discarded
must have a positive aim. as Mr. Noguchi emphasises, not

offhand
all
the extraneous
to
small
details
which were apt
blur
and
weaken the important
vividness," but adopted
an art-idiom " at once vivid and simple," and arranged and rearranged and then unified by
his
own
special taste the reality
and idealism
... to perfection."
144
WORK AND WORSHIP

vividness, unity
Simplicity,
these are the

They
special characteristics of Hiroshige's art.
are, in fact, the characteristics of all the nature
pictures of the Ukiyoe school.
To the extent that

but in their comall
Hiroshige excelled his fellow artists in achieve-
ment he was
munity
of
Hiroshige
eye and hand they were
Japanese,
expressing a racial bent
away from
elaboration
and punctilious realism towards a frugality in
method
than
soul
that
made
for finite perfection rather
for
grandeur and profundity and the

the Endless " which
art.
is
vague "
of
call to
the very
Indian
The
finite
perfections of
Japanese art have their parallels in Japanese poetry, in brevity and adhesion to formulae. " In the East," says Mr. Noguchi, meaning
Japan, " more than in the West, art is allied to verse-making," and he interprets several of
Hiroshige's landscapes in terms of a special
Chinese verse-form, which sounds fanciful but

is
probably rooted in truth.
With
the westernisation of Japan, and the

of the cost of living, the
consequent inflation
classes to
whom
and
the Ukiyoe prints appealed

less able or willing to
became
the
less
pay
higher
prices
which
became current
145
because of increasing labour charges and foreign

competition in buying.
prints ceased.
The demand
for
new
work
died.
past.
for
The craftsmen turned to other mere pittances. The Ukiyoe school

its
Colour-printing became a thing of the
At
best,
as
an eminent collector
it
and student, Mr. Basil Stewart, says,

an art which
less
of the
" has never been equalled,
excelled, in its
own
sphere
was much The

us all
art
colour-print artist
seems
to
the
more wonderful when we remember that

Japan,
at the time these prints were being produced
Europe had only the coarsest of picture-books and the roughest of wood-cuts to show as an equivalent, while they were sold in the streets of Yedo for a few pence.
in
Even
at
the present day," says the
same
can.
connoiseur,
"no
the
western
pictorial
art in
approach
position,
artistic
excellence,
com-
and colour, of these prints produced a hundred to a hundred and fifty years ago and it is to be regretted, from an artistic point of view% that the art has been sO'
line
;
completely
are
still
lost.
While, doubtless, craftsmea
to
be found
who
could equal the skill

to
of the old engravers, the

10
knowledge
produce
146
WORK AND WORSHIP

owe
so
the exquisite native colours to which these

prints
much
of their
charm
is
quite
dead."
CHAPTER X
3.
Individual
Tami KouMfi
From
varieties of art-expression through great
groupings such as races, nations and religions,
and through minor groupings such as the once

popular
school of but
now Japan, we
extinct
'
Passing- world
pass to the study of an
example of individual art-expression.' Mr. Tami Koume was born in Japan, and paints in Japan but if in his hearing you
;
unfortunately refer to
artist,"
him
as
" a Japanese
the most delightfully Japanese manner, say, " I am not a Japanese

will,
he
in
artist,"
and having spitted you on the sharp

paradox,
will
end
help you comfortably back to comprehension by adding, " I am an

of
' For a further study of individual art-expression see article by the author on The Art of Asit Kumar Haider (modern Bengal school) in Rupam, January, 1922.
148
artist ".
WORK AND WORSHIP

Whereupon
at
vast
chasms
of disquisi-
tion
open up
of
your
feet,
with hours
ing
fingers
round a firebox,
warmand much
of
turning of charcoal with
steel chopsticks
by
way
of
punctuation of the march of conver-
sation towards
some degree
of
understanding
as to the distinction in a Japanese artist's
between the Japanese in
The
first
on your
step is a part, " What is art ? " That
mind him and the artist. demand for a definition

is
the
inquisitive, analytical,
western metaphysician's
if
way.
is
But Mr. Koume, being a Japanese

artist, is
he
not a Japanese
not a metaphysician,
any rate in the western sense, and annihilates your question by taking a leaf out of his Irish interviewer's book, and answering the
at
question
artist ? "
by asking
another
" What
down
to
is
an
Which
brings you
funda-
mentals. " Art " can be anything
it
chooses according
mood spider's web

to
the
of the
moment
if
an intellectual
artist is
to catch,
of
their destiny willeth,
some few
matter
flies
truth,
and incidentally a
another
great deal of dust.
But the
a living thing,
artist
not a system, and most
truly an
when
least conscious of the fact
for self-consciousness holds a little
to
149
close
lamp
outer
the eye and obscures the vision of both the sun and the inner. " When we are
aware," Mr.
critical
Koume
remarks, with a touch
of
sharpness,
" that
we
are
'
painting by
inner
need,',
we
of
are not painting by inner need."

contact
Immediacy
mystery
lost,
with
the
pulsating
just
behind the
artist's inspiration is
is
and mere craftsmanship, which

of
the
offspring
muscular
memory
"
in
an indivision
vidual or a race, supervenes,

is
When
clear
" inspiration
and possessing," Mr. Koume adds, is breathless and has no space for
.
introspection
When
spirit
is
speaks to
spirit,
the machinery of tradition
inadequate."
Through phrases such

a glimpse
artists
as these one catches
of
the
reason
why
Mr. Koume,
of
though counted among the best

in
Japan,
a
modern denies the impeachment

artist.
of
being
if
Japanese
like,
I
A
!
Japanese
For, he
of
painter
says, "
you
vision,
but artist, no
When
stood
I
on the summit
artist,
pure
spiritual
was an
".
not a painter,
therefore,
poet
without song
Vision,
springs from a deeper source than the point of
the brush
it
belongs to the immortal artist
150
within.
WORK AND WORSHIP
The restrictions of personality, and with them the larger, but no less close, restrictions of nationality must go, if creation is to have full play. The mask and the flag are in
the retinue of the half-gods, and these are not
creators but creatures.
God
in
alone
is creator,
and when God arrives

of vision, the
little
the flaming chariot
stars of personality
which
flourish in darkness are lost in light.
Naturally Mr.
Koume
craft
is
not the property of
any
is
school.
of
The
the
schools belong to him.

of all of
He
master
them, with
perhaps the exception

school.
of the
modern Bengal
few years ago he painted a celebrated dancer in London with the deliberation
and particularity
of the classicists,
and with a
Later,
chastity only possible to
an
oriental.
in Japan, with a big full brush of Indian ink,
he put the very genius of the Japanese Nohdrama into almost one cyclopean line, in the
doing of which the twitching of a nerve would
have
ruined
gold
screen worth
small
fortune.
One sunny morning,

of abstraction
a face seen in a
moment
threatened such speedy
return behind the curtain of vision that there
was no time
for the
machinery
of portraiture.
151
and the pigment was literally thrown on the canvas with naked fingers. At intervals he is
painting
life
a portrait of his dead
dark saying
to
those
who
mother from labour under
the
stultifying
illusion
that
God has given
humanity only two eyes, and one world. As we talk over these things and their
implications in the rich twilight of his studio
in
the suburbs of Tokyo (the level afternoon
sunlight touching radiantly a plumtree in full
pink blossom outside his porch though snow

has not long
to
left
the ground) one soon begins
feel that
of
in this artist's passage
through a
is
series
technical sloughings, there
being
set free
an instrument
of peculiar
power and
its
sensitiveness for the purposes of Art and

evolution.
Progress comes through the break-
ing of bounds, and Mr.
Koume
has been by
turns classicist,
the
impressionist, futurist.
of
But
not
preoccupations
technique
do
satisfy
him.
skill
He
of
is
the inheritor by race of

perfect ease, the
in
its
perfect
exerted with
characteristic
Greek
art
decline,
art
just
as
it
is
of
traditional
Japanese
of
its
now
sance.
at
the
possible
just
birth
renais-
But
because
he can do with
152
ease
after
all
WORK AND WORSHIP

that
the
specialists
of
the cults
do individually with labour, he throws method
method aside
of
in
his
search for some
circumference
difficulty against
which he
is
may
press in the hope of finding a fissure
opening towards the Light.
This
not the
fidgetting of a dilletante, for there is a strong
calmness in
stirring of
all
Mr. Koume's work

art
it
is
the
something
indicative of the
in
new
is
world on whose frontiers

spiritual
general
moving with confusion and

realm.
art of
uncertainty, the
From
the art of the eye

to the art of
its
through the
emotion
thought
the creative urge has found
way with many

it
waverings and circumlocutions, and to-day
breaks with frustration and hope against dim bastions crowded with shadowy shapes. Mr. Koume's work epitomises the general
progression.
His
early
painting
is
solid,
The Japanese eye and hand, wielding the method of Europe, link two great traditions. He escapes the dominaphysical, full-bodied.
tion
just
of
emotion
of
of
the highly-coloured kind

heritage
of
because
his racial
re-
serve in feeling.
in
his
But
if
if
he does not
does not
feel aloud
paintings,
he
use his
153
palette for the manufacture of coloured tear-
drops, he transmutes the joy and struggle of
the artist into an all-pervading

that
earnestness
if
makes
his paintings feel as
they were
but variations of a central theme that might be
named Hie
jacet.
They
are not perfect accom-
plishments, and therefore dead.
They
are the
shards of the
artist's
own
blossoming, jovial
gravestones smiling resurrection.
The
true artist dies in his work.
He
lives
only in his failure to reduce his dream to the

level of achievement.
artistic
It is
in the struggle for
existence that the artist exists.
He
must forever strain towards accomplishment, and forever evade it. If he cannot honestly
call his greatest success a failure,
it is
a failure
artistic
indeed.
He
by
does not
measure his
progress
any reduction of the distance between his dream and his level of attainment, but by the height that his grasp on the hem
ideal
of his flying
mirage
of actuality
him out of the and borne him towards the

has
lifted
radiant simplicities that culminate in the lone
peak
of
spiritual realisation,
its
the Fujiyama of
easel and takes
the soul, where art leaves

to its knees.
154
WORK AND WORSHIP

Koume He has
is
Mr.
tion.
not afraid of this

it,
consumma-
glimpsed
art
I
and understands.
" Through
staircase,
my
ascend a step of the eternal

a
but,"
he adds with a wistfulness

secret
joy,
that
is
mixed with
".
" there
is
another
Indeed
it is
his doctrine that art's
highest function is the transcendence of art. " True art has neither composition nor colour
nor
canvas
these
are
the
inventions
of
artists."
which Mr. Koume is exceptionally responsive, and which carried him across the emotional realm, did not set him down for long among the fluctuating
The evolutionary urge
to
images
of
the
mind.
I
" Truth
and
cried
;
reality,
these are
multiplicity
what
of
want," he
for
not
a
of
truths,
the
collection
truths
a
is
the business of one intent on stocking

of
museum
'
error
its
not the false
'
reality
that
itself
focusses
hard sight on 'the
thing
but the vision that
goes towards the
veritable self of the thing, the truth that can no
more be imprisoned
dogma than sunlight can be caught between the hands. Hence he did not remain long among the bizarre in art. In " The Mystery " he is a momentary
in a
Japanese Beardsley
of a sort,
155
moving away
to
from the conventional and normal, not abnormal which is the refuge of the
the
artist
who
is artist
toward
springs
from eye and hand outwards, but the extra-normal wherein are the
of
inspiration,
the rivers of living
water
effort.
that
turn the millwheels of
human
art,
From an
extension of consciousness
in this direction
comes, in any form of

significance.
greater transparency together with a greater
involvement
mental art
to
of
Emotional and
may
say a great deal and

;
manage
mean very
little
but mystical
art, that is,
whose eyes are open to the mystery of the universe, means much even in its silences and empty spaces. Art is moving towards this phase. It can
art
never remain
satisfied
its
with outer perfections.
Whatever be
are secretly
of
formulas and methods, they
shaped by the unshapen tradition
the future, and only use the past for the
future's
artist's
purpose.
career are
The
moments in an the moments of his perfect

great
is, is
yielding, wittingly or unwittingly, to the truth
that in art,
it
what
truly
so only in so far as
is
the child of
what
is to be.
Nay, more
156
truly, in
WORK AND WORSHIP

the
of
moments
life
is
of inspiration,
the level
smoulder
cyclonic
hand
illusions
whirled by an invisible into a perpendicular flame

radiance rises above the hisof
whose
torical
point of
past and
future.
The
and
exactions of the low levels,
which
refract
discolour the true light, are surmounted.

shall only see clearly
"We
when we
look over the
head
of
our habitual eyesight," Mr.
Koume
declares.
This ascent means release from the

of detail
;
tyranny
it
means wider view, deep-
er generalisation,
plicity of greatness,
the emergence of the sim-
an approach to the Divine

In such a
disinterestedness.
moment Francis
veins
Thompson sang
One
grass-blade in
its
Wisdom's whole
Tliereon
.
flood contains.
.
.
my
foundering mind
.
Odyssean
.
.
can find Epitomised in thee

fate
Was
God
Which
the mystery shakes the spheres conjoint, focussed to a point.
And
out
in such a
of
moment, Tami Koume,
lifted
tradition,
made
!
the grand discovery,
"
We
are living
Art should show forth the

in
purity of the
moment
".
which we reach
this
majestic truth
At
artist,
157
this point in the history of art
and the
say, a
only symbolism avails
that
is to
method of tion. But

waters
of
indication rather than of representait
must be
a living symbolism,
some
vital distillation
life
out of the
muddy and
turbid
that will help us towards a
realisation of the pure spring
waters have descended

us with the nostalgia
to
from which those our level, and touch
of the soul
which
is
the
supreme
actuality,
test of art.
Little
is is
art chains us to
but great art

".
It
" full of whispers
and
of
shadows
the great Reminder,
nudging us
to recollection of a
throne vacated
somewhere, sometime, somehow, but mixing with its reminder a prophetic hint of what will be when the wheel has come full circle. The solid symbolism of Watts or the liquid symbolism of Whistler help us on the way but a little, for the challenge of the symbol in the hands of either artist is so powerful to eye and sense that it mainly draws our attention
to
the fact that x
means one thing and y

to hold
another,
and tends
us from the adven-
turing leap across the gulf between the symbol
and the thing

that
is
signified.
Moreover, the art
only coloured algebra, as in the case of
158
WORK AND WORSHIP

of
much
Watts' work, or geometry in a state
of revolt and full of
new
wine, as
is
most
of
the cubist and futurist
art,
leaves us in the
brain,
lets
merely cold admiration
of the
it
unless
the
somehow
secret
in
spite
of
itself
slip
that " in
".
the
Celestial all things are
persons
is
Mr.
Koume
it.
has spied the secret, and
burning
to tell
When
does
he wants
not
paint
to
limn
one feature
calls
of the
Divine physiognomy that he
Struggle,
he
man
struggling, but throws together the instruments

of
struggle
(clenched
hands and straining

strings of the
shoulders and hastening feet) in a design that

is
as a tightening
hand on the
imagination.
Art,
through the immortality
of its
masterlimbs,
pieces, has rivetted mortality on its
own
holding them to the bondage of things seen.
But the day of the opening of the things unseen is at hand.

history, chafing
'at its
its
inner eyes to
in its
At times
it
chains,
has attempted
its its
with
right
its left
work of hand, but has only managed to give

hand
to pull
down
the
chain a
the truth
of the
new name, and to blind itself against that, when Alexander got to the edge
of
world
power, and had
all
outer things
under his
his
little
159
feet,
he had come
to the threshold of
toughest adventure, the storming of the

postern of his
own
is
inner kingdom.
To-day,
while art
searching for other
worlds to conquer, and looking along the level

surface of the earth for
its
kingdom, the other

art.
worlds are seeking

the rampart of
to
conquer
Here and
there they have found vulnerable points in
human
ignorance, in the poetry
and painting
of
of
AE
in Ireland, in the paintings

of
Wooler and the music

face in
Foulds in London,
distantly in the painters of Bengal, almost face

to
Tami Koume who in the suburbs of Tokyo nurses the dream "One day I shall
express the pure negotiation

spirit ".
of spirit
with
Printed by
J.
R. Aria, at the Vasanta Press, Adyar, Madras.

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a5i^i^^1il8'5l!

WORK AND WORSHIP

QforneU Hniucrattg SItbrarg

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME Op THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

Cornell University Library

Work and worship

essays on culture and

1924 029 755 109

WORK AND WORSHIP

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

of the leading poets of the

chief cultural influences in

modern India. Freedom essays on the

the idea of freedom in certain

the Keiogijuku University, Japan.

Cultural Unity of Asia

WORK AND WORSHIP

Cornell University Library

Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright

the United States on the use of the

chapters were published in Rupam, Shama'a,

necessary, permission has been obtained

which the author

expresses his thanks.

THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY ADYAR, MADRAS

THE FUNCTION OF CULTURE

say exactly what

whether language has ever it meant to

utter half a lie

that only conveys at most one-quarter

for a black pencil is not

and the blackness

WORK AND WORSHIP

approximation between the thing

But as we ascend our view becomes wider

truth, the approximation

so remote that the space

prose annotation of twelve pages.

one can carry in one's pocket are

THE FUNCTION OF CULTURE

means, among other things,

But the word when used

his struggle against those

from following his father's

understand that there are really two

English, one derived from the

which, while apparently opposed or unrelated,

The word prevent means

impossible for a person to do a particular

begins, " Prevent us,

The two meanings, apparently

Latin prae, before,

and, learning this,

see that both hindrance and guidance imply

vention puts a stop to action

At the lowest level preon a higher

the Divine guidance

WORK AND WORSHIP

a Latin saying, Laborare est orare,

the offering of the lips

offering of the hands.