Very nice topic chandra.
Art, in whatever form or however you define it, should it be for art’s sake? Or the masses.
Personally, I do not believe in rigid rules. To answer you in short, I think, IT ALL DEPENDS.
One thing for certain, and this factor we should take it into account. Art is a reflection of the times. many great european artists starved or lived in penury. Their fame came after they died, and the money that flowed out of their works did not benefit either the artists or their families.
I would also like to consider our own community’s attitude towards the film industry. Notwithstanding the fact, that greats like MS, GNB and such like acted in movies in their youth, we always (atleast in my household) associated the filmworld as of ‘loose morals’. I still remember my relatives commenting on MS’ suprabatham as something she did to ‘wash away her sins committed in youth’. With such attitudes, we may tend to discount certain fields as ‘unworthy’ of our respect and hence lose out on an entire arena of appreciation.
I hope attitudes towards the filmworld has changed these days, what with Vidya Balan & Trisha, our own pattar girls, now on top of the spectrum. To me, these are hard earned positions in a ruthlessly competitive field and worthy of admiration and regard. I have heard how the gounder community views Surya as a role model. I wonder how many girls’ parents would do likewise for Vidya or Trisha. Attitudes make art.
Painting. The only paintings left from old india are the mughal miniatures and later the british artists paining on indian landscape. We do not know anything about paintings of the earlier era, though some wall paintings of ajanta or ellora has survived. The muslims might have destroyed all the temples but we do not, to the best of my knowledge, have surviving paintings on cloth or canvass. True enough there was temple art. But were these meant only for the ruler patrons? Or did the public of those days got to get joy out of them.
In today’s world of instant and cheap communication art can exist for its own sake. Or with the backing of the masses. One only has to build a website and upload images of one’s painting, sculpture, poems or novels. With youtube you can even post takes on your acting or singing skills. All this you do for your own sake. Meanwhile, unknown to you, there might be a word of mouth spread, and before long, you may find your popularity increasing in the wide world out there. at that point, your art moves on to the realm of the masses.
Every type of art gives back something to the fans. A book is a delight for several hours. It does not matter if it is a pulp fiction or shakespeare. Each is beautiful in its own way, and to just praise one type and deride the other is not befitting of any decent human. One man’s delight is another one’s bore. It is best to leave it like that. my preference is for carnatic music in tamil. Noway does it decrease thyagayya’s kritis but it is just not for me, even though I appreciate the greatness of the same.
I love pop and cinema music. To some other folks it is jazz and others it is classical. To invoke the art for art’s sake argument here, I think, sort of dwells into the area of ‘purity’ of the art form. Ie a purist will not care for the popular appeal of his work, but only focus against the incursion of other influences to his primary school of creativity. I am not so sure of this either, as fusion of different schools of art, could be awesome if done carefully.
Chandra, therefore, I find it difficult to accept prescriptions as to what a person thinks what art should be, and whether it should be art’s sake. Or otherwise. Maybe we should not go into the mode of prescriptions as to what art should be, and what its domain should be. These will naturally sort itself out. As individuals, we know what we like. To us that is art. There are things that we do not like. To us these are not art or atleast we will not acknowledge them to be art. This does not make either Picasso or Vidya Balan to be one iota less of an artist.
Let arts of all forms flourish. The only times we have to watch out, is when senseless folks start burning books, cutting artwork into pieces and breaking centuries old sculpture, in the name of dogma. that type of behaviour, to me is more a threat to the artworld, that any posed or prescribed in this thread. Maybe the next time we go to a cinema, we might be wont to remember, that this too is a piece of art, and in our own way, we are continuing the legacy of our ex ruling classes in doing our ‘bit’ for the artist. In this case, art has moved from its own sake, to the sake of the masses. N’est pas?
