IT IS SCIENCE! NO... IT IS ART, BABE!

I have been a science student and had been away from any form of Art since childhood. Perhaps an inherent feeling that I may not be good at any form of Art. But then I always wanted to pursue some sort of art form as a hobby, be it Painting, Music and many such things.

There was a feeling that such art forms are in born talents and one needs to have it naturally… Was I right in this thinking?

After so many years, I did really start to pursue some of the so called “Art Forms”. And that really set me thinking. The other day my Piano teacher was teaching me some mathematics behind a particular note that I was to play. In simple terms I was to precisely hit a button in intervals of One-eighth of a Second or in say two seconds. And I had to be really precise. This I had to calculate it mentally and play it. Boy! Is this any form of art? This is precise implementation of mathematics man! A Key board is simply a medium.  

Coming to think of it, if I look at any other forms of Art. Consider drawing or painting – Yes there are set of rules. The boundaries. A miniature is made and then extrapolated. The choice of colours and the mixing could be predefined and just follow the set of rules. The painting can be done isn’t it. Simple logic. Then why do you call it an Art?

Same goes for cooking. We had a visitor who commented – your mom really cooks well. And made a statement - Cooking is such an art. Is it? We have the recipes. Follow the ingredients and put them in the right proportions and follow the instructions, cant you make delicious food? But as they say, the day you decide to cook with your heart, you are sure to do a great job of cooking. Just with a good feel for the taste you can do a decent job of it.

I was brought up in an environment of Carnatic Music. I have always been given to understand that such Carnatic Music is quite complicated and with thousands of Raagas available and many great Composers have used many Raagas and have created good Musical Offerings. I wanted to understand what these Raagas mean as a layman. To my surprise I found that these Raagas were nothing but very scientific arrangement of different notes grouped together for ascending & descending frequencies. They have given names to these groups which are otherwise called as Raagas. Some of these groups of frequencies may sound better during the day and some perhaps in the night. So they became classified as Morning Raagas or Evening Raagas respectively(some purists refute this theory though- according to them there are no morning or evening Raagas , people have labelled to their convenience). Anyways, this is a vast subject in itself. But little that I touched upon, I found that they were very systematic and scientifically arranged forms. One needs to perfect this scientifically… How is this then an ART?

I am asking this question – doesn’t this prove that I am no artist. Yes the artists who are proficient in any of the art forms know better, whether they are trained artists or they have inborn talent, Artists are artists.

Science can give them the set of rules, but it requires an artist to understand and implement the Science in one glimpse. Or let me put it this way – like our very old classic theory – which came first – Chicken or Egg? Perhaps the Art form came first, and Science did a good job of analysing the art to give it some definitions!