Science without art
Great artists either depict their critique on present times or the future that they envision, in their works. They never dwell on the past. These are not only my views but also those of noted Russian artist Malveich. Bradbury, in his work predicts a bland, art-free, automatic, and unexotic way of futuristic life, implicitly criticising the present that would lead to such a future.
I would like to focus on the dominance of science over art and its severe effects, in my analysis. “They blended religion and art and science because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle. They never let science crush the aesthetic and the beautiful.” says Spender about the Martian way of life. Spender describes the ideal sustainable relation between art and science. The absence of art in the equation causes imbalance. As seen in ‘The Off Season’, science in the form of atomic bombs leads to the destruction of Earth. The investigators of moral climate in 'Usher II' in their acts of conflagration and destruction are comparable to the Roman Catholic Church at the zenith of power in Renaissance time. The author sympathizes with Stendahl which is clear from the way the story ends. We see how the Moral Climate committee is ignorant of the very works of Poe that they have burned, and this ignorance leads to their downfall. Moreover the committee is comparable to ‘A scientist who can prove that color is only the way the cells are placed in a certain material to reflect light.”, I believe that such a scientist too would fall at the hands of the art that he condemns.
Hence Bradbury has given out a clear message that no amount of progress in the area of science can substitute the nutrition our soul requires. A balance is essential.
