After concluding his talk on the effects produced by works of art, Hazrat Inayat Khan begins to take questions from his listeners.

Question: Would not an artist be afraid of making a work that might produce something undesirable?

Answer: It is better that he should be afraid, for then he will be careful.

Question: But if he does not know the effect it may have?

Answer: If he will try to know the effect, then he will know it.

One day a person brought me a record and took the trouble of explaining it to me. In the absence of his master, the pupil of a magician called the forces of water and then found he could not stop the flood. Afterwards, the teacher came and stopped it. On that idea, the music was made. I said, ‘It is an interesting idea, but please, don’t play it!’ It is very easy to enjoy a picturesque idea, but one never stops to think that it is not the idea that is important, but that it is the outcome of it that will be destructive or constructive.

Another example one sees in steamers, especially in the Channel. As soon as one goes into one’s cabin, the first thing one sees is a picture of a person about to sink and putting on a life belt. It is the first thing one is impressed with as the first omen. Certainly it is instructive, but it is not a psychological instruction. Even if the person in the picture is not drowned, the impression is not a good one. If such an instruction is needed, then it would be better to distribute picture cards after the ship has started, after people have become accustomed to it.

Question: Is it not unwise to fill a schoolroom or chapel with scenes of death, even of saints and masters?

Answer: It is more than unwise. I could use some other word for it – especially when it is in connection with saints and masters who never died.

Question: Does the idea of beauty and ugliness account for the constructive or destructive nature of art?

Answer: Certainly. Harmony is beauty, and lack of harmony is ugliness. Harmony is constructive, and disharmony is destructive.

To be continued…