We live amidst extraordinary landscapes—temple streets layered with history, villages that wake to mist and birdsong, coastlines that shift colour by the hour. And yet, our everyday surroundings often feel neglected. A wall peels and remains unattended. A street gathers clutter until it fades into the background of daily life. Public spaces slowly become no one’s responsibility. We pass through them without really looking.
This is not only a failure of governance. It is a failure of
attention.
No policy can beautify a country whose people do not feel
beauty in their surroundings. Cleanliness drives can remove dirt; regulations
can impose order. But they cannot create the quiet desire to make a place
aesthetically alive. That desire emerges only when people begin to see their
environment differently—not as a backdrop, but as something worth caring for.
History suggests that such a shift often begins with
artists.
In nineteenth-century France, painters like Claude Monet,
Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Cézanne left the city and turned their attention to
villages and countryside. They painted fields, cottages, rivers, and narrow
streets—ordinary places, rendered with extraordinary attention to light and
colour.
Houses on the Hill by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
What changed was not the landscape, but perception. The
everyday acquired dignity. Villages became objects of admiration. Over time,
these images entered public imagination, and places like Provence and Arles
came to be seen not just as locations, but as aesthetic identities.
Art did not merely depict beauty. It taught people how to
notice it.
A similar sensibility took shape in Japan. Artists such as
Hiroshige Ando captured fleeting scenes—a road in the rain, a bridge at dusk,
travellers in passing moments. There was no spectacle, only attention to the
transient and the ordinary.
This way of seeing did not remain within art. It entered
life itself—into how spaces were arranged, how streets were maintained, how
small details were treated with care. Over time, it produced an environment
where even the simplest settings appear intentional and serene.
Japan’s aesthetic refinement did not arise by accident. It
emerged because people learned, gradually, to see.
Cherry Blossoms under the Full Moon by Utagawa Hiroshige
In the United Kingdom, this relationship between art and
environment has evolved into public participation. The landscape tradition
shaped by artists like J. M. W. Turner and John Constable continues today
through competitions and programs that bring artists into real settings. People
watch, engage, and begin to look more closely at landscapes they might
otherwise ignore.
Flatford mill, John Constable
Beauty becomes not distant, but shared.
India has already shown, through initiatives like Swachh
Bharat Mission, that collective behavior can change. But cleanliness is only a
beginning. A place can be clean and still feel lifeless. The deeper challenge
is to move from cleanliness to care, from compliance to pride.
That transition cannot be enforced. It must be felt.
What might such a shift look like? It could begin with
artists turning their attention to the lived environments of India—streets,
neighborhoods, villages, small towns. Painters, photographers, and students
could treat these spaces not as problems to be fixed, but as subjects worthy of
attention.
When a place is painted, it changes—not physically, but
perceptually. A familiar street, seen through an artist’s eye, reveals patterns
and relationships that were previously overlooked. Those who live there begin
to see it differently.
And that difference matters.
A shopkeeper who sees his street as something that can be
beautiful may think twice before adding to its clutter. A resident who sees her
locality represented with care may feel pride. A child who sketches her
surroundings begins to notice details others miss, forming a relationship with
her environment that is attentive and responsible.
Such changes are small, but they accumulate. They influence
behavior. They shape expectations. Over time, they create a culture in which
beauty is not exceptional, but normal.
Institutions can support this shift—through competitions,
exhibitions, and platforms that celebrate local environments. Schools can
encourage students to observe and represent their surroundings. Media can
highlight places for their aesthetic potential, not only their problems. But
these are enablers. The transformation itself is personal.
It lies in how we look.
Do we move through our surroundings without seeing them? Do
we accept visual disorder as inevitable? Or do we pause, even briefly, to
notice light, colour, and form?
A country becomes beautiful when its people begin to feel
that their environment is not neutral. It reflects what we value.
This awareness cannot be imposed from above. It must be
cultivated through repeated acts of attention.
The beginning is modest. An artist paints a street. A
student sketches a corner. A community takes pride in its surroundings. These
acts may seem small, but they reshape perception. And when perception changes,
behavior follows.
India does not need to discover beauty. It is already
present. What we need is to recover our ability to see it—and, having seen it,
to care.
Perhaps the first step is not to clean a street, though that
is necessary. It is to look at it, quietly and attentively, as if it were worth
painting.
