Art

Is it ever possible to paint a totally satisfying painting?

Rabindranath again has to be remembered. He wrote six thousand songs -- seems to be the greatest poet the world has ever known -- and each song is a beauty. But when he was dying he was crying, he was saying to God, "The song that I wanted to sing, I have not sung yet." An old friend was by the side of the bed, and the old friend said, "What are you saying? Have you gone mad? You have sung six thousand songs. In Europe, Shelley is thought to be one of the greatest poets. He has sung only two thousand songs. You have defeated him three times. You should be happy and contented!" Rabindranath opened his tear-filled eyes and he said, "I am not. Yes, six thousand songs I have sung, but you don't know the inner story. The inner story is, I wanted to sing only one…

What about art and enlightenment? When you are creating a poem, a painting sculpture, music, you can feel very close to the meditative state. Yet, it is not pure nothing-ness -- because it has an end, a goal. It also enhances the ego. Won't you ultimately have to transcend this kind of creativity?

ART DEPENDS ON YOU. If you are pathological, your art will be pathological. If you are enlightened, your art will be enlightened. The art carries your quality. If you go to Ajanta, Ellora or Khajuraho, you will find a totally different kind of art. If you listen to classical music, you will find a different quality of art. If you listen to modern music, a different kind of art will be found there. If you see Picasso's paintings, they ARE pathological. Something is ill -- something is ill in Picasso and something is ill in the world that Picasso is going to represent in those works of art. Never keep a Picasso painting in your bedroom, otherwise you will have nightmares. It is very representative of this society. The society is ill, neurotic, but the art depends on you. The art does not descend out of the blue, it comes…

Isn't it that every piece of art, and all poetry, arises out of a contradiction, out of the battle between yes and no? Doesn't the end of this fight in us mean silence?

Not all poetry, not all painting, not all music, not all art, arises out of contradiction. But ninety-nine percent arises out of contradiction. That's why ninety-nine percent of art is a little pathological. Picasso is pathological, so is Vincent van Gogh. You will always find your poets, your painters, a little ill somewhat eccentric, bizarre, nuts. Now psychologists say that if you get nuts to paint, that helps them to become normal. It has been tried all over the world -- 'therapy through art' they call it. If a madman is given paints to paint with, by painting he throws his madness out. If he goes on painting, after a few weeks you will find he is turning to normal. Something has been catharted out of him through art. Sigmund Freud had this attitude, that all art is pathology. Not all -- I will not agree with him to that…

Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHAT DO YOU SAY ABOUT MODERN ART? Asang, the first thing is, it is not art. For the first time something exists in the name of art which is not art at all. It is more a therapy than an art. Look at the modern paintings and you will be convinced of what I am saying. The painters must be insane; they have poured their insanity on the canvas. It helps them because it releases some tensions inside their being. It is a catharsis, but it is not art. It is therapy through art, but not art itself. If Picasso is prevented from painting, he will go mad. Vincent van Gogh went mad before he committed suicide. And I have been looking into his life deeply and my feeling is he went mad because he could not paint as much as he wanted.