All aspects of beauty, but particularly music and painting, fascinated me. I went through a very intense vital development during that period, with, just as in my early years, the presence of a kind of inner Guide; and all centered on studies: the study of sensations, observations, the study of technique, comparative studies, even a whole spectrum of observations dealing with taste, smell and hearing - a kind of classification of experiences. And this extended to all facets of life, all the experiences life can bring, all of them - miseries, joys, difficulties, sufferings, everything - oh, a whole field of studies! And always this Presence within, judging, deciding, classifying, organising and systematising everything.
- The Mother

"I was born in a bourgeois family, quite respectable, where art was considered rather as a pastime than a career and the artists as not very serious people, inclined to debauchery and contemptuous of money, a rather dangerous thing. I felt, perhaps out of a spirit of contradiction, a compelling need to become a painter. My entire consciousness was centered in my eyes and I could express myself more easily through a sketch than through words. I learnt much better by looking at pictures than by reading books; what I saw once - landscapes, human faces or drawings - I never forgot. At the age of thirteen, I had almost mastered, through much effort, the technique of drawing, water colour, pastel and oil painting. I had occasion then to do some paid work for friends and acquaintances of my parents. As I began to earn money, my family too began looking upon my vocation seriously. I took the opportunity to make a through study of the subject. When I attained the required age, I joined the School of Fine Arts and almost immediately stood for the Prix de Rome competition and came out first. I was one of the youngest of the laureates. That gave me the opportunity to acquaint myself thoroughly with Italian art....

I am not satisfied. My conception of genius is quite different. One must create new forms, with new means and processes to express a higher and purer, truer and nobler beauty of a new type. So long as I feel myself tied to humanity I cannot be freed completely from the forces of material Nature."

The discipline of Art has at its centre the same principle as the discipline of Yoga. In both the aim is to become more and more conscious; in both you have to learn to see and feel something that is beyond the ordinary vision and feeling, to go within and bring out from there deeper things. Painters have to follow a discipline for the growth of the consciousness of their eyes, which in itself is almost a Yoga. If they are true artists and try to see beyond and use their art for the expression of the inner world, they grow in consciousness by this concentration, which is not other than the consciousness given by Yoga.
- The Mother

There is a considerable amount of difference between the vision of the ordinary people and the vision of the artists. Their way of seeing things is much more complete and conscious than that of ordinary people. When one has not trained one's vision, one sees vaguely, imprecisely, and has impressions rather than an exact vision. An artist, when he sees something and has learned to use his eyes - for instance, when he sees a figure, instead of seeing just a form, like that, you know, a form, the general effect of a form, of which he can vaguely say that this person resembles or does not much resemble what he sees - sees the exact structure of the figure, the proportions of the different parts, whether the figure is harmonious or not, and why; and also of what kind or type or form it is; all sorts of things at one glance, you understand, in a single vision, as one sees the relations between different forms 
- The Mother

The Yogin's aim in the Arts should not be a mere aesthetic, mental or vital gratification, but, seeing the Divine everywhere, worshipping it with a revelation of the meaning of its works, to express that One Divine in god and men and creatures and objects. 

But when you are in Yoga, there is a profound change in the value of things, of Art as of everything else; you begin to look at Art from a very different standpoint. It is no longer the one supreme all-engrossing thing for you, no longer an end in itself. Art is a means, not an end; it is a means of expression. And the artist then ceases too to believe that the whole world turns round what he is doing or that his work is the most important thing that has ever been done. His personality counts no longer; he is an agent, a channel, his art a means of expressing his relations with the Divine.
- The Mother

In the world of forms a lack of Beauty is a fault as great as a lack of Truth in the world of ideas. For Beauty is the homage which Nature renders to the Supreme Master of the universe; Beauty is the divine language in the form. A consciousness of the Divine which is not externally translated by an understanding and an expression of Beauty would be an incomplete consciousness.

But true Beauty is as difficult to discover, to understand and, above all, to live as any other expression of the Divine; this discovery and this expression demand as much impersonality and abdication of egoism as the discovery of Truth and Bliss. Pure Beauty is universal, and one must be universal in order to see and recognise it.

O Lord of Beauty, how many faults I have committed against Thee, how many faults I still commit!... Give me a perfect understanding of Thy Law, so that I may no longer fall short of it. Love would be incomplete without Thee; Thou art one of its most perfect ornaments, Thou art one of its most harmonious smiles. Sometimes I have misunderstood Thy role, but in the depth of my heart I have always loved Thee. And even the most arbitrary, the most radical doctrines have not been able to extinguish the fire of the cult which, since my childhood, I have vowed to Thee.

Thou art not what a vain people think of Thee, Thou art not exclusively attached to any particular form of life: it is possible to awaken Thee, to make Thee shine in every form; but for this one must have discovered Thy secret.

O Lord of Beauty, give me a perfect understanding of Thy Law, that I might not fail in it and that Thou mayst become in me the harmonious crown of the Lord of Love.

In everything, everywhere, in all relations truth must be brought out in its all-embracing rhythm and every movement of life should be an expression of beauty and harmony. Skill is not art, talent is not art. Art is a living harmony and beauty that must be expressed in all the movements of existence. This manifestation of beauty and harmony is part of the Divine realisation upon earth, perhaps even its greatest part.
- The Mother