The question whether art has anything to do with morality or not has been one of the most vexed and baffling problems of aesthetic criticism. Much has been said on both sides of the problem by great men of letters in various countries, and their opinions are too weighty to be lightly set aside. Hence in assessing the proper relation between artistic production and its moral and ethical purpose one is apt to lose oneself in a bewildering mess of critical opinions on the matter and nothing can be said with an air of finality. Yet, when we consider the history of the origin and development of the various forms of art in various countries we find that the question has been decided in practice in the days of the origin of those arts. And it is only a literary exercise to discuss the issue that has been solved already. It is a fact that the origin of all forms of man's artistic productions, like poetry, painting, music etc. has been deeply rooted in the religious instinct of man.
In other words, artistic activities of men since the very first days of human civilization have been always inspired and directed by religious ideas. Thus in the case of painting, the earliest specimens of the Oil Paintings have been concerned with the pictures of the gods and goddesses belonging to the pantheon of the religious faiths of the countries of the artists. These gods and goddesses are the highest conceivable embodiments of the painters sense of the beautiful, sublime and the noble and the object of these artistic creations is to induce in the mind of man the moral ideas of right and wrong, the ugly and the beautiful, the false and the true and thereby ennoble and elevate the human mind. Such is also the case of poetry and its allied art of music.
Sculpture in the early days of Greece and Rome was concerned with the representations in stone, of the pagan gods and goddesses, which not only enshrine the highest kind of beauty that pleases the eye, but inspires lofty religious emotions. The various epics of the people of old were written with the sole object of moral edification, by inculcating virtues which are to be cultivated and warning against evils or vices which are to be avoided. Thus art has always served as handmaid to religion and ethics and it has been always appreciated by the standard of moral excellence that it has held up as subject of emulation by man, so that he can live a pious and good life by embracing the good and eschewing the evil.
Thus in its origin and purpose, art has been intimately bound up with morality. No Landscape Art was considered good or worth - having that does not promote a healthy moral feeling in man. With the progress of civilization, when arts became mundane and came from the heights of heaven into the world of men and women, poets sang their songs of men, and painters drew their portraits of men and women as embodiments of the highest ideals of beauty and moral excellences, that inspire audience.
