Predicaments of Contemporary Art and Iqbal’s Aesthetic Metaphysics

Abstract

Great poets, artists and writers have always been evoking a feel of transcendence and an urge for transformation in humans, and thereby alleviating a ubiquitous sense of anguish and unremitting stasis which has been a nightmare for mankind. This study critiques some of the trends in the contemporary art which sometimes tend to celebrate despondency, anguish and even ‘nothingness’. The researchers show how our media-saturated and trend-obsessed art forms have a considerable presence of what some of the critics have called non-art or pseudo art. It is against this backdrop that the researchers have proposed Iqbal’s aesthetic metaphysics as an antidote to the elements of hollow cynicism and nihilistic depreciation which are being foregrounded in art with an unprecedented seriousness and frequency. If art is to lead mankind to a radically creative process of becoming, it must be rooted in ‘something’ instead of ‘nothing’ and here comes the paramount necessity to confront the overly relativistic and skeptic attitudes which are gaining greater visibility in the contemporary world of art.