Is Music Superior to Other Arts?
I do not know what to say on the subject you propose to me - the
superiority of music to poetry - for my appreciation of music is
bodiless and inexpressible, while about poetry I can write at ease
with an expert knowledge. But is it necessary to fix a scale of
greatness between two fine arts when each has its own greatness
and can touch in its own way the extremes of aesthetic Ananda? Music,
no doubt, goes nearest to the infinite and to the essence of things
because it relies wholly on the ethereal vehicle, sabda, (architecture
by the by can do something of the same kind at the other extreme
even in its imprisonment in mass); but painting and sculpture have
their revenge by liberating visible form into ecstasy, while poetry
though it cannot do with the sound what music does, yet can make
a many-stringed harmony, a sound revelation winging the creation
by the word and setting afloat vivid suggestions of form and color,
- that gives it in a very subtle kind the power of all the arts.
Who shall decide between such claims or be a judge between these
god-heads?
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