Form or Mere Illusion?* - the Annual of Urdu Studies

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8 • The Annual of Urdu Studies, No. 25Not just psychological, this can even turn into a biological problem.However, looking at it merely from the artistís vantage, we would call it amajor artistic snag. The concept of ìart for artís sakeî was introduced tosolve it. Here, too, I shall vehemently deny that ìart for artís sakeî is anethically decadent concept. I have already shown above how even triflingmoral relationships have become impossible for the artist. The conceptìart for artís sakeî is not so much a disengagement from morality as it isthe pursuit of a new kind of morality for the artistóhowever imperfectand riddled with flaws this might be. Goodness and truth are discussableconcepts and can be laid out rationally with appreciable success. Thentoo, society plays a major role in formulating standards of goodness andtruth and no one is immune from contact with the material aspects ofthese standards in their everyday life. They are overwhelmingly collectivein nature and derive their legitimacy to a large extent from their commonacceptance. Argumentation, forcing others to accept oneís views or acceptingtheirsósuch things looked quite absurd and meaningless, perhapseven immoral to the new artists. Their artistic problem compelledthem to take recourse in ìbeautyîóthe third element of the ethical trinity.ìBeautyî tends to be a comparatively more individualistic concept, has todo more with sensory experience than intellect. Hence one can proclaimits reality with greater authenticity and certitude. It also does not leavemuch room for discussion.The demise of all other ethical relationships drives the new artist tocling to ìbeautyî as his last resort, but beauty too can have a commonlyaccepted standard, which, to the new artist, is reason enough to considerit false. Hence, he is loath to assist in establishing anything at all, unwillingto accept such responsibility. He does not believe in permanent values,or if anything, only in their relativity. Consequently, he does notvolunteer to offer any enduring standard of beauty. Baudelaire loves theclouds that flit away. In other words, the beauty the new artists subscribeto is indeterminate, it keeps changingónot some timeless concept butonly the product of a fleeting impression.The final touchstone of art thus becomes purely aesthetic. Althoughthe new artist continually says that beauty and truth are one and the samething, in the end these words reveal yet another turmoil.When the Greeks proclaimed beauty and truth and goodness a unity,they stressed all three equally, not beauty alone. Just as truth could producebalance and harmony in formal relationships, likewise truth as aconcept, or the moment when truth is achieved, should also be beautiful.By contrast, the new artists have been too impatient to rid themselves oftruth and goodness and disengage beauty from the trinity. They have not
Muhammad Hasan Askari • 9been able to see how truth and goodness could remain pure and uncorruptedin a greed-ridden society. Whenever they declare the unity of truthand beauty, what they strive for is to somehow escape responsibility forthinking about or setting up standards for truth and goodness. In spite ofthis vociferous declaration, their effort has been concentrated mainly onturning art into an aesthetically satisfying collection of formal relationshipsin which ethical or unaesthetic elements carry no significance. Inother words, conferring an objective status on art that cannot be subjectedto the tribunal of ethical standards, exactly like a tree or a stone that cannotbe considered good or bad from a moral point of view. All one can dois accept their existence.After all, psychologically and biologically a definitive and total objectivityis not accessible in art. Not, at least, until a chemical change occursin man or a work of art is born from his stomach like a baby. Anyway,alongside the individualism and subjectivity of the new artist, one alsonotices a tendency to make a work of art as much as possible an objectiveelement based on aesthetic and technical considerations and increasinglyfree of ethical standards. Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898) presents the conceptof ìpure poetry.î Paul Verlaine (1844–1896) proposes that poetic linesshould be music, first and foremost and maximally, anything else is ìjustliterature.î ìImpressionismî makes its appearance in painting; it does notlook at life as a whole and is satisfied with merely a fleeting impression,which makes technique paramount. In the novel, Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) clamors for the independence of art and its superiority, and verynearly turns it into a religion requiring monkish sacrifices and exercises.Subject is irrelevant to him, expression is everything. And there are theNaturalists. Although not exactly lovers of art, they do study man with theimpersonal objectivity of a scientist dissecting an animal. Naturally what ascientist attempts to discover does not come within the purview of ethicalstandards. So, in foisting the objectivity of science on art, the Naturalists,too, in fact, attempt, even if unconsciously, to distance themselves fromethical issues and judgments.In short, the end result of all the theorizing and conceptualization ofthis period was that artists, exhausted from the ethical struggle and despairingof success, wanted to somehow disengage the concept of beautyfrom those of truth and goodness. They could not see any way for honestartistic creation except through such disengagement. Since truth andgoodness are such important concepts that they could not be set aside,they talked themselves into believing that beauty inherently included theother two.It is likely that assigning beauty an independent and supreme status
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