A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

A thing of beauty is joy for ever is famous line from Keats poem. He tells us that man has great capacity of creating beautiful things. Because of his aesthetic, sense beauty is a constant source of pleasure fro man. He loves to express his sense of beauty in the things to make, not only in the works of art, but also in the things of his daily use like pots and pans. Man loves nature because it appeals to his aesthetic sense, he enjoys it because it corresponds to his dreams of beauty. He creates art so that he may see his golden dreams and ideals in a visible form.

No doubt beauty is a source of joy. But since life is process of change and development, the beauty also changes with the passage of time for instance we look at the primitive arts with a sense of curiosity, but perhaps not with the same delight with which the primitive man viewed it. We may discover wistfulness, a longing for a vague sense of mystery in the music of old tribes, but we find much better satisfaction in our own music. Art grows and develops. It discovers new themes new methods and new techniques. Modern art has discovered beauty in painting herd, of sheep a flying aeroplane, a rushing railway train or a factory chimney emitting endless smoke.

With our poets and painters we have come to recognize a new beauty in these things. Thus a fresh vogue has started in modern arts. Like wise fashions have changed and change has taken place in literature also. In eighteenth century Englishman regarded Pope as the great poet of their race. Then there come time when it began to be questioned whether Pope was great poet at all. Today critics have again started thinking that pope was a great poet. Perhaps it is right to say that the sentiments of succeeding generations gather round a celebrated work of art. And if it makes an appeal to the successive generations it is partly because of its inherent beauty and partly because of their sentiments. A thing of beauty therefore may necessary be joy for ever or for everyone.

Still there are things of beauty which have delighted many generations and are still a source of joy to us. The Taj Mahal for instance has been an endless source of joy for 400 years. We have not grow tired of it though ages have passed since it was first created Thus a piece of art which has a strong hold on our emotions and moves us deeply is more lasting than the one which gives us only instant sensation by a show of formal beauty Eighteen century beauty laid stress on beauty of form and neglected the spirit. That is why it fails to move us today as deeply as the fails to move us to day as deeply as the poetry of Keats and Byron. A thing of beauty is joy for ever only when it makes the strongest possible appeal to our emotions or when it touches the innermost chords of our soul “make me thy lyre such as the forest is” Shelly tell us in the west wind in his immortal “Odo”. 

Great art makes our soul its lyre and produces from it a deep note of harmony. Milton’s poetry moves us deeply while Popes’ Essay on Man fails to do so. The art which has powerful hold on our heart remains unaffected even by the changes of time and does to grow obsolete; such is the case with Bunyan’s Piligrim’s progress which even to day, is one of the most popular story books of the day. It is doubtful whether art of the virgina Woolf or James Joyse would attain to immorality like this simple but great book. James Joyce and Virgina Woolf had their day in the thirties by virtue of their novelty and techniques. But there is enough reason to believe that their art is loosing its appeal. To be able to make a lasting appeal art should be rooted n the themes of permanent human interest of the type we find in the tragedies of Shakespeare or in the poetry of Mitlon.

Our conception of beauty is confined mostly to art and literature. When we think of beauty we think of a beautiful poem, a beautiful painting or a beautiful piece of music. But it does not occur to us that a beautiful life also is a work of art and therefore a joy for ever”. I have an idea” says a character in Somersot Mangham’s novel “the painted veil” that the only thing which makes it possible to regard the world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of Chaos” the picture the paintings, the music they compose, the books they write and the lives of al these art the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is a perfect work of art. Life in conformity with an ideal or life lived according to a plan is a beautiful life. A work of art. Our life in most cases is more existence. But more thoughtful among us mould heir lives in accordance with a pattern and derive the satisfaction of turning a chaos in to a cosmos by giving form and shape to that which is formless. And this is what the artist does. To live according to one’s nature and purpose is to create beauty is one’s life.