Nature is created by itself, while art is the creation of nature. Painters paint beautiful pictures and every picture shows a particular posture of man against a certain backdrop of life. The sculptors carve out the figures of mortals from the stone-slabs. The poets tell in rhythm of the inner workings of humanity. These artists create art in tacit imitation of nature. While doing so, their lone concern is to create beauty. And obviously, they are never, in the least, bothered about the moral implications associated with the created things.
Art is never demonstrative: it never catches attention with an exhibitionistic appeal. Obviously, a casual observer scarcely finds anything impressive - a thing of beauty in it. But on the other hand, the eye of a connoisseur never misses it. With his penetrating look and absorbing concern he explores the innate charm of an object of art.
Art knows no death: it is imperishable. Truly Longfellow sings: Landscape Art is long and time is fleeting. The species of nature is born only to die after a certain space of existence. Art continues indefinitely. Rabindranath Tagore also holds the identical view on art. He sings in his immortal poem Taj Mahal that a work of art with its unravished beauty moves onward unchallenged and unhindered from generation to generation with the message for man: art is unforgettable, it never dies. But morality scarcely outgoes the assigned bound of the age it belongs to. It is the formulation based on the objective values of a certain period. Obviously, the moral principles of one age seldom conform to the same of the other. Thus, it stands abundantly clear that art can never be equated with morality.
Clutton-Brock isolates art from any other consideration in life. According to him, art belongs to the moment and it is never to be connected either with the past or with the future. It has nothing to do with the questions of morality or immorality, anything good or bad, honest or dishonest. Art can alone be judged and appreciated with aesthetic experience.
There is, of course, no denying the fact it was the time when art was closely linked up with morality. Till the emergence of Raphael it was the tradition of Oil Paintings to paint Nature as she is - in her nakedness. Thus, in due course obscenity and vulgarity intruded the area of paintings. The moral standard stood flouted. Raphael with his magic brush appeared on the scene. He forged ahead with an accepted norm: Nature is to be painted by eliminating from her anything that may be deemed as vulgar or obscene. In modern times we see some paintings advertising a product of a business-house or a drama on the stage tending to be life-like and they directly injure our moral values. Hence, the time is ripe for the pundits to ponder over the serious question if these may, at all, be considered to be the works of art or not. Ovid observes: Art lies in concealing art. While busy in picking up the elements of beauty and joy from a poem or a song, from a painting or a bust, it is absurd for a man to allow himself to be disturbed by the irrelevant question of morality or immorality. If it so happens, he can enjoy anything but a work of art.
