Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 15 Number 2, August 2014
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Art as an Expression of Personality: An Approach to Tagore's Concept of Art
by
Tripura University
Abstract
In this paper, I shall discuss Tagore's concept of art as an expression of "personal man". The central theme of Tagore's theory of art is the notion that art is a bridge across the gap which alienates the individual from the world. The art-objects are the symbols of human personality and they are true in relation to it. The truth of art is essentially a dialogic relation of the "personal man" with the world-the world of expressions. The mode of intentionality in our aesthetic experience is dialogical, because the intentional act of consciousness with regard to our aesthetic experience is a convergence of both consciousness as an ego and the art object. In this paper, while narrating art experience as an expression of personality, I shall deal with Tagore's concept of personality and the surplus in man extensively. I shall also show that through human's creative urge, how a gradual transformation takes place from the biological to the spiritual; from I-It level to the I-Thou level of human existence. Through artistic language we can also understand Tagore's notion of the interpersonal (I and Thou) relationship.
Keywords: art, personality, "surplus in man", language.
According to Rabindranath Tagore (1861--1941), every human is an artist and a true understanding of the world is possible only in an intentional mode which is creative. Our artistic experience is a kind of an intimate relation between humans and the world. This relation can be best understood through a language, which is used counterfactually. The subjunctive function of language is attributed to human's will to art.
Before investigating intentional character of artistic experience, let me first dwell on the important question--what is art or artistic experience according to Tagore? Tagore has neither proposed a definition of art, nor has he cited any definite reason for its possibility. For him, it is not an important issue as it stands. According to him, "Art, like life itself, has grown by its own impulse, and humans have taken their pleasure in it without definitely knowing what it is. And we could safely leave it there..." ( 2008b, 349). At best it can be argued that, "It is the response of man's creative soul to the call of the Real" (Tagore, 2008d, 142). In fact while speaking about 'art', he actually takes recourse to philosophical anthropology.
Tagore is unable to look upon art as a social product, as something entirely determined by socio-economic factors or by utilitarian considerations. He is also disturbed by the term 'historicity'. In the essay, 'The Religion of an Artist', he tells us that the Poem no doubt comes from the person who produces it. But directly a poem is fashioned, it is free from its genesis, it minimises its history and emphasises its independence. The same is true of all creation. A dew drop has no filial memory of its parentage. Tagore goes on to add that the materials or ingredients of creation are supplied partly by history, partly by society, but these neither make nor explain the creator. The autonomy of art experience will not permit Tagore to accept any deterministic dogma, ancient or modern. A protagonist of process, he is not a traditionalist in the traditional sense. In the essay, "Art and Tradition", we hear him telling, "Art is not a gorgeous sepulchre, serenely brooding over a lonely and lost eternity of vanished years. It belongs to the procession of life, making constant adjustment with surprises, exploring unknown shrines of reality along its path of pilgrimage to a future which is as different from the past as the tree from the seed" (Tagore, 2010e, 77-78).
Tagore uses the term 'art' to include humans' linguistic ability of expression, creativity and communication, appreciation or criticism. Of these, the creative use is considered to be the primary characteristic of art. The creative process of art can be shown symbolically. Roy remarks that, "Much of his [Tagore's] critical writings on art is symbolism are based upon the primal and elemental experience of human life" (1990, 3).
Art is human because it is intensely personal. As Tagore says, it is the language of personality. Arts and literature represent our creative activity, which is fundamental in us. The artist is one who finds the unique, the individual, which is the heart of the universal. "In art we express the delight of this unity by which the world is realized as humanly significant to us" (Tagore, 2008d, 139). He further comments that if this unity fails, it shows the failure of the artist, which is the failure in expression (2008d, 140).The meaning of art becomes an instrument of self-expression, whose other name is freedom. To give us the taste of reality through freedom of mind is the nature of all the arts. It is the aim of art and literature to realize and communicate this essential joy and immortality of truth. German philosopher Immanuel Kant also givers importance to the freedom: freedom of the rational mind. He argues that humans in a state of fear are as incapable of judging nature as one possessed by longing or appetite is of judging about beauty (1978, 110).
The truth of art is essentially a dialogic relation of the "personal man" with the world-the world of expressions. The mode of intentionality in our aesthetic experience is dialogical, because the intentional act of consciousness with regard to our aesthetic experience is a convergence of both consciousness as an ego and the art object. In this paper, while narrating art experience as an expression of "personal man", I shall deal with Tagore's concept of personality. Tagore says that personality means a "self-conscious principle of transcendental unity within man" (2008d, 134), by virtue of which humans extend themselves in the infinite through the increase of their knowledge, love and activities.
Tagore's concept of human personality is finding its fruition through the realization of the feeling of intimacy with nature. From his childhood days, he was fascinated by the splendour of nature-the rising of the sun, the chirping of the birds and the whistling of the wind through the trees. He is of the opinion that nature does not lose herself but reveals its true colour to a person's self, having its own eternal bindings with human nature. Nature is not alien but is essentially related to humans. In the vastness of nature, we are not unknown strangers; we are her kith and kin. Tagore writes,
When in the morning I looked upon the light I felt in a moment that I was no stranger in this world, that the inscrutable. Without name and form had taken me in its arms in the form of my own mother (Tagore, 2011f, 95).
He thinks that there are essentially two senses in which we can think of our relationship with nature --one in which we ordinarily treat it as an insentient, objective mode for information, binding down humans to the physical and essential needs; and the other in which it satisfies our personality with manifestations that make our life rich and stimulate our imagination in their harmony of forms, colours, sounds and movements. He argues that we are face to face with this world and our relations to it are manifold. We are always making things that will satisfy our need, and we come in touch with Nature in our efforts to meet these needs (Tagore, 2008b, 349).
Sengupta in his article, "The Surplus in Man: The Poet's Philosophy of Man" (1988, 48) argues that the inter-relation between humans and nature can be found at the lower or the communication stage and the higher or the communion stage. They are not two different stages. Rather, one stage is ultimately passing over to the growth of another stage. Humans have a very good communication with nature. Nature helps humans to develop their personality in as much as humans help nature to reveal its beauty. Humans grow along with nature in so far as they can identify themselves with nature and make it their messenger of communication. With the help of nature humans create their own nature, create beauty, and create art. In their creativity and self-expression, humans become conscious of the abundance, their ability to go beyond their physical finitude and through the creation of art, strive to send their communication to the Supreme Person who reveals Himself to them.
Again, communication as a form of inter-relationship between humans and nature has two levels--one is the cognitive and the other is the existential (Sengupta, 1988, 49). At the cognitive level, nature contributes to knowledge not as an externality but as revealed to humans. Tagore writes, "All our knowledge of things is knowing them in their relation to the Universe, in that relation which is truth" (2008c, 496). But humans, due to their engagements with day today activities, forget that nature is theirs. It is not that nature has grown out of touch with us, rather, we do not perceive nature in its aspect of unity, and we are motivated to destruction by our aspect of the fragmentary. Tagore laments that: "We grow out of touch with this great truth, we forget to accept its invitation and its hospitality, when in quest of external success our works become unspiritual and unexpressive" (2008c, 496. Tagore also quotes here Wordsworth's line,
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
Little we see in Nature that is ours (2008c, 496).
At the existential level, we see nature's contribution to human development; and this is possible if one can free oneself from the attitude of closedness caused by the ego. There is always a correlation between the extent of receiving from nature and separating from the ego. There is now a deepening of self-knowledge and self-development at the higher level of relatedness to nature is communion or unity. The unity of humans and nature has its source in the One or the Absolute. For him spirit and nature are the twin aspects of the Absolute.
It is in human consciousness of a deeper unity with nature, with the universe, and finally with the Supreme Person who has created this universe for huamns. Communion as a higher mode of relationship between humans and nature is characterised by inwardness and depth. The depth has an educating purpose. Nature teaches humans in as much as we teach others. Communion as a matter under discussion is the experience of joy, freedom and love. Tagore comments,
When a man does not realize his kinship with the world, he lives in a prison-house whose walls are alien to him. When he meets the eternal spirit in all objects, then is he emancipated for then he discovers the fullest significance of the world into which he is born; then he finds himself in perfect truth, and his harmony with the all is established (2008a, 283).
Therefore, in Tagore's opinion, nature forms the background for the development of human personality. Humans and nature have a relation of collaboration and transcendence. It is not a relation of anti-thesis between humans and nature--humans against nature, but a relation of humans with nature. Both humans and nature are, ontologically, equally important for Tagore (Banerjee, 1988, 31).
But humans are not satisfied with what they are. They have a desire to transcend their own limitation and finitude and ultimately want to reach a point where one is identical with oneself (I=I), and it is nature that helps humans to realize this goal. Humans carry within themselves the beauty of nature and an urge to transcend their facticity and to reach the Infinite. Tagore says that humans are a bridge between two poles. He remarks,
At one pole of my being I am one with stock and stones. There I have to acknowledge the rule of universal law. That is where the foundation of my existence lies, deep down below...But at the other pole of my being I am separate from all. There I have broken through the cordon of equality and stand alone as an individual. I am absolutely unique, I am I, I am incomparable. ( 2008a, 306)
But Tagore asserts that realizing the Absolute/Infinite requires toil and suffering. Tagore says in Gitanjali,
Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them.
Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed.
I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room
The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love. (2011f, 10)
Tagore's notion of the consciousness of consciousness (I=I) has affinity with the transcendental consciousness of Kant. Kant says that all representations have relations to empirical consciousness and all empirical consciousness has a necessary relation with transcendental consciousness. It is necessary in our knowledge situation that all empirical consciousness belong to one transcendental consciousness, that is, the consciousness of 'I' or me. Kant argues, "…all empirical consciousness has a necessary consciousness of myself as original apperception. It is therefore absolutely necessary that in my knowledge all consciousness should belong to a single consciousness, that of myself" (1973, 142). This abiding and unchanging 'I' (pure apperception) is the basis of all our representations. This pure apperception is the highest principle in the whole sphere of human knowledge. This consciousness of 'I' or the thinking 'I' expresses the act of determining my existence. I am conscious of my own existence. This consciousness of my existence is given by self-intuition.
According to Tagore, humans' personality and creativity go together. Humans come out of their boundary of physical necessities and move forward to realize the Infinite on two parallel lines--that of utility and of self-expression. True freedom is the transcendence of mere being through creative becoming. This reminds us of the opinion of Sartre, when he says,
...Man is all the time outside of himself: it is in projecting and losing himself beyond himself that he makes man to exist; and, on the other hand, it is by pursuing transcendent aims that he himself is able to exist. Since man is thus self-surpassing, and can grasp objects only in relation to his self-surpassing, he is himself the heart and centre of his transcendence. There is no other universe except the human universe, the universe of human subjectivity (1948, 55).
The creation of art, music, painting and dance elevates man from a mere being to a personal man. Tagore says about the personality of humans that it is "conscious of its inexhaustible abundance; it has the paradox in it that it is more than itself; it is more than as it is seen, as it is known, as it is used. And this consciousness of the infinite, in the personal man, ever strives to make its expressions immortal and to make the whole world its own" (2008b, 362). Sartrean notion of 'man is not what he is, man is what he is not' echoes in the writings of Tagore, when he says, "...Man has a feeling that he is truly represented in something which exceeds himself. He is aware that he is not imperfect, but incomplete" (2008d, 106).
The "personal man", according to Tagore, is the highest in humans, the "Eternal man", the "Complete Man" in this realization of the unity of beauty, truth and goodness. There is an inter-relation between the world in which we live and the personality of humans. In fact, this world is endemic for the development of the personality of humans. In his words, "With our love and hatred, pleasure and pain, fear and wonder, continually working upon it, this world becomes a part of our personality....If this world were taken away, our personality would lose all its content" (Tagore, 2008b,353).
Tagore calls this creative urge, which is found within all human beings as the 'surplus in man'. This surplus seeks its channel in the creation of the beautiful and the good that builds humans' true world; and this creation is the proper function of art (2008b, 359). In creating art, humans reveal themselves and not the object. In their creativity, humans realize the Supreme Person (Jivan Devata), who has made this world so personal to humans. Tagore thinks that humans are true, where they feel their Infinity or the Divine; and the Divine is the creator in them. Therefore, with the attainment of their truth, they create (2008b, 359). In their approaching the Supreme Person, humans also get the assurance of their immortality, for humans are the symbol of light. Whenever they fully realize themselves they feel their immortality (2008b, 359). Humans can live in their own creation and consider the world of God as their own world. The Supreme Person reveals Himself to us in a world of endless beauty across the lightness world of facts. In this respect, Tagore argues, humans listen to the voices, which was once heard by the great Indian sages,
Hearken to me, ye children of The Immortal, dwellers of the heavenly
Worlds, I have known the Supreme Person who comes as light from the dark beyond (2008b, 360).
While explaining the distinctiveness of human personality, Tagore also shows the difference between humans and other animals. An animal is very nearly bound within the limits of its necessities, the greater part of its activities are being necessary for the self-preservation and the preservation of the race. Humans on the other hand, have the capacity to transcend these necessities and exercise their freedom in creativity. "Man has a fund of emotional energy which is not all occupied with his self-preservation. This surplus seeks its outlet in the creation of Art, for man's civilization is built upon his surplus" (2008b, 352). Humans as knowers are not fully themselves; but as persons, they are the organic humans, who have the inherent power to select things from their surrounding world and make them their own.
Tagore's notion of art and reality are cognates and they belong to the family of the concept of harmony. Aesthetic harmony, according to Tagore, is trans-subjective in character, and it should be considered as something distinct from the Kantian harmony of the object with humans's cognitive faculties as they come into play in reflective judging of it. According to Kant, in judging the beautiful we seek its gauge in ourselves a priori, and as such the purposiveness is subjective, i.e., to be explained on super-sensible grounds as necessary and universal. In Tagore's case, the deeper relatedness of harmony is of the nature of love, wherein we seek our unity with others. For him, "the other is also a self-conscious personality, which has its eternal harmony with mine" (Tagore, 2008d, 143).
A work of art has its origin in a feeling of unity which is creative, and therefore a successful work of art is a creative unity. Tagore conceives of art as an encounter of the self with its other. The world and the personal humans are face to face, like friends. The central theme of Tagore's theory of art is the notion that art is a bridge across the gap which alienates the individual from the world. The art-objects are the symbols of human personality and they are true in relation to it. The art is a process of delineation and that the intentionality of human consciousness maps onto a non-solipsistic world are brought out by this statement:
Reality reveals itself in the emotional and imaginative background of our mind. We feel ourselves in a special field of realization. The consciousness of the real within me seeks for its corroboration the touch of the Real outside me. In art we express the delight of this unity by which the world is realised as humanly significant. Where the harmony is not deeply felt, we are aliens and perpetually homesick. By nature humans are artists; they never receives passively a physical representation of things round them. There goes on a continual adaptation, a transformation of his sentiments and imagination (Tagore, 2008d, 138-39).
Furthermore, there is another important characteristic in humans, which the other creatures are lacking. In Tagore's opinion, it is the dualism in human consciousness of what is and what ought to be. Again, in the animal life, the conflict is between what is and what is desired, but in humans, the conflict is between what is desired and what should be desired. Tagore says that, "What is desired dwells in the heart of the natural life, which we share with animals; but what should be desired belongs to a life which is far beyond it" (Tagore, 2008b, 378).
Therefore, the important distinction between what is and what ought to be looms large in the relation between humans and other animals. In this relation, there is a continuation and a conflict. Many things that are good for the one are evil for another. This necessity of struggle with themselves has produced an ingredient to their personae, which is character. From the life of desire, it directs humans to the life of purpose, and in Tagore's words, it is the life of the moral world (2008b, 378).
In the ethical world, we come from the world of nature into the world of humanity, the world where humans have their freedom of creation. The human world is truly a world of ideas and institutions, of stored knowledge and trained habits. This is the world of humans' second birth, "the extra-natural world, where the dualism of the animal life and the moral makes us conscious of our personality as man" (2008b, 378). It thus shows a development from the natural order of existence to a spiritual order of existence, that is, to the inter-personal (I-thou) level of existence. Tagore is of course, not the first thinker to speak on an I-Thou relationship. In the history of western philosophy, this I-thou relation is famously known after the phenomenologist Martin Buber.
According to Tagore, the state of realising our relationship with all through the union with the divine is the ultimate end and fulfilment of humanity. Therefore the spirit of One in God has the many for the realisation of the unity and the truth behind this spiritual union is love. He thinks that humans are above all lovers, their freedom and fulfilment are in love, which is another name for perfect comprehension. By this power of comprehension, this permeation of their being, they are united with the all-pervading spirit. Through love, human society is for the best expression of humans, and that expression, according to its perfection, leads them to the full realization of the divine in humanity. Tagore says,
In love the sense of difference is obliterated and the human soul fulfils its purpose in perfection, transcending the limits of itself and reaching across the threshold of the infinite. Therefore love is the highest bliss that humans can attain to, for through it alone they truly know that they are more than themselves, and that they are at one with the All (Tagore, 2008a, 291).
This is the ultimate end of humans, to find the One which is in them; which is their truth, which is their soul; it is the key which opens the gate of the spiritual life. But that One in us is always seeking for unity--unity in knowledge, unity in love, unity in purpose of will; its highest joy is when it reaches the infinite one within its eternal unity (2008a, 295).
Language is one of the important modes of communication of human self-revealing activity. Freedom is integral to a self-realizing subject. As Charles Taylor says,
The central importance of art is bound up with an enhanced role for feeling. The realization of man... involved an expression, in the sense of a clarification, of what he is; and this is why the highest fulfilment comes in expressive activity. In its highest form, this expression must be recognised by him and be a mode of self-awareness..., since subjectivity at its highest is self-consciousness....Thus the highest expressive activity is the vehicle of both vision and feeling together, and this is why language, not only in its origins but in its highest functions, is continuous with art. (1975, 21)
The subjunctive use of language can definitely help us to understand Tagore's notion of the interpersonal relationship, because he distinguishes between experience as such and one's consciousness of experience. He maintains that in art it is not the experience itself that the artists express, but their personalities, i.e., their own consciousness of the experience. The telos of art is to project another order of being, humans' true world. This world, which transcends the world of facts, is called the world of expression, and it is a creation of humans's personality. Personality, therefore, is both the 'I' and 'Thou' of human existence. According to Tagore, self-expression is the important channel of communication. As an expressive being, humans recover communion with the universe. It is in human consciousness of a deeper unity with nature, with the world, of which we are a part. The self- revealing being (I) is in interchange with the greater nature. This point is also emphasised by Taylor. He says, "Our self-feeling must be continuous with our feeling for this larger current of life which flows through us and of which we are a part; this current must nourish us not only physically but spiritually as well" (1975, 25).
Furthermore, our communion with nature also entails our relation with the 'other'. The self-expressive being carries an eternal relation with the other and the other is also dependent upon my existence. In this way, there arises an inter-personal relationship between 'myself' and the 'other' (I and thou). It will be appropriate to mention here the views of Hegel that the idea becomes its other, and then returns into self-consciousness in Geist. The life of the absolute subject is essentially a process, a movement, in which it posits its own conditions of existence to the universe, and then overcomes the opposition of these conditions to realize its goal of self-knowledge (Hegel, 1979, Preface 14).
Conclusion
At the deeper ontological level, this inter-personal relation of I and thou takes the form of intra-personal level of human existence (I am thou). And this understanding of intra-personal relationship is also possible through language. I am dependent upon other and the other is a condition for my union with the all-pervading spirit. Tagore thinks that to attain our world-consciousness, we have to unite our feelings with this all-pervasive infinite feeling, and this is possible when we free ourselves from the bonds of personal desires, prepare ourselves for our social obligations and for sharing the burdens of our fellow beings. Thus, I and thou work for a common cause to achieve the unity of consciousness. He says that to be truly united in knowledge, love and service with all beings, and thus to realize one's self in the all-pervading God is the essence of goodness (Tagore, 2008a, 289), and it is also the key that opens the gate of the spiritual life, the heavenly kingdom. Kant will like to say this as-- founding of a kingdom of God on Earth.
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