There is no beginning and end for art. Art is a permanent thing. The aim of art is perfection. It is an eternal and infinite thing. That is why art is divine. Nature was there, is there and will be there. Nature is the creation of God. Art is the achievement of man. Art will be there as long as man is there on the Earth.

Beauty is Truth

“Beauty is truth, Truth beauty,” says John Keats in his poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn and “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” in another poem, Endymion. Universal truth is beautifully expressed in the artistic creations like sculpture, painting, music, etc. using the usual and ordinary experiences of human life as matter or substance and such beauty of art remains to be a joyful thing to man for a long-time. This phenomenon can be found in Classical Arts.

There is beauty and truth in classical arts which give joy to whoever who approaches them. For example, in the classical sculptures of the Indian Temples one can find that there is beauty in them, it has a meaning and there is a message which is good and great for everyone to cherish in memory and follow in life to get real peace, happiness and satisfaction. Such divine arts make human mind clean and clear, give satisfaction to human heart and energise human spirit with inspiration, vigour and strength. Indeed there is spirit and power in Classical Arts.

Classical and Modern Arts

Classical Arts have lost their popularity as they have become very difficult for everyone to understand and enjoy without the basic knowledge of arts. Classical Arts, which are now called as Cultural Arts are practised by the few people who still follow the norms or the traditional culture of India especially in music and dance, are considered to be orthodoxical people. After the western type of civilisation has permeated to all corners of the world, the trend now is for the offbeat in arts which are called as Modern Arts especially in music, dance and painting.

Modern arts do not have depth, variety, ingenuity and complexity as Classical arts. Modern arts thrill, fascinate and put people in a state of trance or a frenzy mood instantly and leave them where they are the moment the spell is over. They do not have a resonance or lingering effect any longer as the predecessor arts have. But modern arts have a popular appeal among younger generations of the modern world now. This is the actual position and place of arts today.

Survival of Art with commercial value through Modern Media

The products of modern civilisation very popular among the people of the world today are the greatest scientific inventions like Cinema and Television. Cinema is a mass media and whose competitor is the TV, the latest thing of today. Art is surviving through the mass media like Radio, TV and Cinema. Artistic productions of this kind are termed as commercial arts. Art survives only if it is has good commercial value today.

The quality of commercial arts is low as art is used not to enhance human nature in the direction of divine nature but to satisfy the baser nature of human beings as profit motive of commerce is top most in the minds of the producers. If good, artistic creations are produced with the commercial value also into consideration surely there will be good quality in the commercial art and also the higher needs of human nature can be satisfied at the same time. If this path is followed by modern art producers, human culture can be maintained for the greatness of man in the modern world.