lapsus linguae

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Should not art, in the deepest sense, break conditioning?

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

yeah i guess so..that's why the best of them don't spoon feed us and are difficult to get acquainted to...

maheshc.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004 11:28:00 AM  
Blogger Eroteme said...

I suppose art, at any depth, cannot rise from a conditioned mind. Art would have to, essentially, be of the unknown. When that unknown beauty crosses over into the known media of representation, we call it art. Isn't it so? I recently saw a dance performance called the fire on stage or something like that, where artists in white presented an amazing display of fine movements and innuendoes. Truly amazing. It wasn't bharatanatyam nor was it flamenco (both of which were fused in a recent performance, I think, in Hyderabad). So anything engendered by the conditioned mind (or the mind itself) cannot (IMHO) be art. Does it have to be syncretic? No. It has to beauty's choice of expression, unsullied by the desire of hand that holds the brush, baton or forms the mudra. So one (art) cannot exist where the other (mind) does. Someone asked someone (I think it was Plato. Not sure, I had noted it down somewhere. Will provide it later) whether he feared death, to which he replied thus: How can I fear death? When I am, death is not. When death is, I am not. (my recollection lacks the lustre of the quote). So be it with art and the conditioned mind.

Thursday, January 06, 2005 10:21:00 PM  
Blogger Eroteme said...

Got it. Not Plato. It was Epicurus. Here is how it goes:

Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?

Saturday, January 15, 2005 11:50:00 AM  

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