Leo Tolstoy “What is Art?” from the book by that name
1896.
The material in 1-6 comes before our text begins [I will refer to this but will focus on the
text.]
1. [ Two definitions of beauty
1.1. objective: mystical, merged into God, founded on nothing
1.2. experimental: simple, intelligible, subjective, “that which pleases”
2. Both definitions are the same subjective definition: art is what makes beauty
manifest, and beauty is that which pleases without exciting desire.
2.1. Aestheticians have asked why a thing pleases, converting the discussion to one
about taste.
2.2. But there is no explanation why one thing pleases one man and not another.
2.3. The [so-called] science of aesthetics fails to define the qualities and laws of art or
of beauty or of taste, separating art from non-art.
2.4. Instead, it acknowledges certain things as art because they please us (a certain
circle) and then devises a theory to fit that.
2.5. The art canon: certain productions favored by “our circle” [Russian upper
classes] Phidias etc. [sculpture, painting, music, literature] the aesthetic laws
embracing all these productions [note similarity of this idea to Hume]
2.6. Opinions about these are not based on certain laws that determine which works
are good or bad.
2.7. All existing aesthetic standards are like this.
2.8. No matter what insanities appear in art, once they are accepted by the upper
classes a theory is invented to explain them.
2.8.1. [Yet] there have been periods in which people recognized deformed art
which was thence forgotten.
3. The theory of art founded on beauty is nothing but the idea that what pleases the
upper class is good.
4. To define a human activity one must understand its sense and importance.
4.1. One must examine the activity itself in relation to causes and effects, not merely
in relation to pleasure.
4.2. The definition of an activity will be false if it says the aim is mere pleasure.
4.2.1. No one would think the aim of food was pleasure or that satisfying taste
determines merit in food, i.e. that food with alcohol is the best food: The
meaning of food lies in nourishment.
4.3. Those who try to define art in terms of pleasure transfer the question to an arena
foreign to art, i.e. metaphysical, psychological, physiological or historical
discussions of why something pleases someone -- making definition impossible.
5. [The question he has been trying to answer has both moral and definitional aspects.]
“What is this art to which is offered up the labor of millions, the very lives of men,
and even morality itself?”
5.1. No definition of art has been constructed because all efforts have been based on
beauty.
6. Rather, to define art it must be considered one of the conditions of human life, one of
means of human intercourse.
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6.1. Every work of art causes the receiver to enter into a relationship with the
producer and with previous and subsequent receivers of the same impression.
6.2. Art, like speech, serves as a means to union among men.
6.3. By speech men transmit thoughts, by art men transmit feelings.]
7. Our Text Begins Here. A man receiving through hearing or sight another man’s
expression of feeling is able to experience the emotion.
7.1. One man laughs and another hears it and becomes merry. [Note: he does not
consider this art. See below.]
7.2. One man expresses courage and this state of mind passes on to others….infected
by the same feelings
7.3. Upon this capacity is the activity of art based.
7.4. But merely infecting another directly is not art.
8. Art begins with one person expresses a feeling by external indications in order to join
another or others to himself [leads to the brotherhood of man idea]
8.1. The boy and wolf example: only if the boy again experiences the feelings he had
lived through and infects the hearers with it, is it art.
8.2. Inventing the story to infect hearers with the same feelings is also art.
8.3. canvas, marble, sounds work too
8.4. The feelings may be diverse: love of one’s country, submission to fate, raptures
of lovers, of voluptuousness [but Tolstoy disapproves of some of these]
9. Italicized definition adds “by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms
expressed in words”: [note also that this is a definition of the activity of art]
9.1. Second italicized version adds that the process must be conscious.
10. So Art is not various things others have defined it as being. One of these is “the
expression of man’s emotions by external signs” which is presumably too broad.
10.1.
It is a means of union among men.
10.2.
It is necessary for progress towards well-being of individuals and of
humanity.
11. As men are able to understand past thoughts that have been expressed, so too they
may have access to everything lived through (in terms of feelings) by both past men
and contemporaries, and can transmit them to others.
11.1.
If men lacked the first capacity they would be like wild beasts or like
Kaspar Hauser, and if they lacked the second, even more savage.
11.2.
Therefore the activity of art is as important as that of speech.
12. What we hear and see in theaters, concerts, exhibitions, buildings, statues, poems,
novels, is only smallest part of art
12.1.
All human life is filled with works of art: cradlesong, just, mimicry,
ornamentation, church services, etc.
12.2.
Art is not all human activity transmitting feelings but such activity to
which we attach special importance, i.e. from religious perception [what he later
refers to as brotherhood of man]: this is art in the full meaning of the word.
Additional Material not in our text.
From Chapter 15.
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The stronger the infection, the better is the art as art, speaking now apart from its subject
matter, i.e., not considering the quality of the feelings it transmits.
And the degree of the infectiousness of art depends on three conditions:
1. On the greater or lesser individuality of the feeling transmitted;
2. on the greater or lesser clearness with which the feeling is transmitted;
3. on the sincerity of the artist, i.e., on the greater or lesser force with which the
artist himself feels the emotion he transmits.
From Chapter 16
How are we to decide what is good or bad in the subject matter of art? Art, like speech,
is a means of communication, and therefore of progress, i.e., of the movement of
humanity forward toward perfection….as the evolution of knowledge proceeds by truer
and more necessary knowledge, dislodging and replacing what is mistaken and
unnecessary, so the evolution of feeling proceeds through art – feelings less kind and less
needful for the well-being of mankind are replaced by others kinder and ore needful for
that end. That is the purpose of art. And, speaking now of its subject matter, the more art
fulfills that purpose the better the art, and the less it fulfils it, the worse the art.
In every period of history, and in every human society, there exists an understanding of
the meaning of life which presents the highest level to which men of that society have
attained, an understanding defining the highest good at which that society aims. And this
understanding is the religious perception of the given time and society.
The religious perception of our time, in its widest and most practical application, is the
consciousness of our well-being, both material and spiritual, individual and collective,
temporal and eternal, lies in the growth of brotherhood among all men – in their loving
harmony with one another.
[the] Christian principle of universal union…forms the religious perception of our
time…the religious perception of our times does not select any one society of men; on the
contrary, it demands the union of all – absolutely of all people without exception – and
above every other virtue it sets brotherly love to all men. And therefore, the feelings
transmitted by the art of our time not only cannot coincide with the feelings transmitted
by former art, but must run counter to them.
only two kinds of feeling do unite all men: first, feelings flowing from the perception of
our sonship to God and of the brotherhood of man; and next, the simple feeling of
merriment, of pity, of cheerfulness, of tranquility, etc. Only these two kinds of feelings
can now supply material for art in its subject matter.
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