Tolstoy's Theory of Aesthetics.
Iian Neill
interest in Tolstoy's essay, "What is Art?" I have selected passages from there,
which are by no means representative of the entire work, but do go some way to
capturing the flavour of it, and I have posted them here to see what news ideas
might be stirred up. Even if one is not Christian or an atheist - like myself -
one is not prevented from appreciating the immense importance of this work. All
one need do is replace the words "religion" with "philosophy" and "Christianity"
with the moral system of your choice, and I think you will find his views as
relevant today as they were in 1910.
The first thirty-six pages of Tolstoy's landmark essay, "What is Art?" or so
are devoted to the consideration of what art is, as understood by the
influential philosophical figures of his era, back to the 18th century and even
Ancient Greece. Here I shall quote Tolstoy:
"To the question, what is this art to which are offered in sacrifice the labours
of millions of people, the very lives of people, and even morality, the existing
aesthetic systems give answers all of which come down to saying that hte aim of
art is beauty, and that beauty is known by the pleasure it gives, and that the
pleasure given by art is a good and important thing. That is, that pleasure is
good because it is pleasure ... And therefore, strange as it is to say, despite
the mountains of books written on art, no precise definition of art has yet been
made. The reason for this is that the concept of beauty has been placed at the
foundation of the concept of art."
-- Page 36
"Art begins when a man, with the purpose of communicating to other people a
feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself and expresses it
by certain external signs ... Feelings, the most diverse, very strong and very
weak, very significant and very worthless, very bad and very good, if only they
infect the reader, the spectator, the listener, constitute the subject of art
...
"To call up in oneself a feeling once experienced and, having called it up, to
convey it by means of movements, lines, colours, sounds, images expressed in
words, so that others experience the same feeling - in this consists the
activity of art. Art is that human activity which consists in one man's
consciously conveying to others, by certain external signs, the feelings he has
experienced, and in others being infected by those feelings and also
experiencing them ...
"Just as, owing to man's capacity for understanding thoughts expressed in
words, any man can learn all that mankind has done for him in the realm of
thought, can in the present, owing to the capacity for understanding other
people's thoughts, participate in other people's activity, and can himself,
owing to this capacity, convey the thoughts he has received from others, and his
own as they have emerged in him, to his contemporaries and to posterity; so,
owing to man's capacity for being infected by other people's feelings through
art, he has access to all that mankind has experienced before him in the realm
of feeling, he has access to the feelings experienced by his contemporaries, to
feelings lived by men thousands of years ago, and it is possible for him to
convey his feelings to other people."
-- Pages 39, 40
"We are accustomed to regard as art only what we read, hear, see in theatres,
concerts and exhibitions, buildings, statues, poems, novels ... But all this is
only a small portion of the art [as creative activity] by which we communicate
with one another in life. The whole of human life is filled with works of art of
various kinds, from lullabies, jokes, mimicry, home decoration, clothing,
utensils, to church services and solemn processors. All this is the activity of
art. Thus we call art, in the narrow sense of the word, not the entire human
activity that conveys feelings, but only that which we for some reason single
out from all this activity and to which we give special significance."
-- Page 41
"The appreciation of the merits of art - that is, of the feelings it conveys -
depend on people's understanding of the meaning of life, on what they see as
good and evil in life. Good and evil in life are determined by what are called
religions ...
"Religions are indicators of the highest understanding of life accessible at a
given time in a given society to the best of the leading people, which is
inevitably and unfailingly approached by all the rest of society. And, only,
because of that, religions have always served and still serve as a basis for
evaluationg people's feelings. If their feelings bring people closer to the
ideal to which their religion points, agree with it, do not contradict it - they
are good; if they move them away from it, disagree with it, contradict it - they
are bad ...
"If religion places the meaning of life in earthly happiness, in beauty and
strength, then art that conveys the joy and zest of life will be considered good
art, while art that conveys feelings of delicacy or dejectin will be bad art, as
was thought among the Greeks ...
"Always, in all times and in all human societies, there has existed this
religious consciousness, common to all people of the society, of what is good
and what is bad, and it is this religious consciousness that determines the
worth of the feelings conveyed by art. And therefore, always, in all nations,
art that conveyed feelings resulting from the religious consciousness common to
the people of the nation was recognized as good and was encouraged, while art
that conveyed feelings discordant with the religious consciousness was
recognized as bad and was rejected; the whole enormous field of art by which the
people communicated among themselves was not valued at all, and was rejected
only when it ran counter to the religious consciousness of the time."
-- Pages 43, 44
"We are so used to regarding naively as the best human race not just the
Caucasian race, but also the Anglo-Saxon if we are English or American, the
German if we are German, the Gallo-Latin if we are French, and the Slavic if we
are Russian, that when we speak of our art, we are as fully convinced that it is
not only true art, but is also the best and the only art. Yet not only is our
art not the only art, as the Bible used to be regarded as the only book, but it
is not even the art of all Christian mankind, but just the art of a very small
section of that part of mankind...
"To the observation that if our art is the true art, all people ought to
benefit from it, the usual objection is that if not all benefit from existing
art, it is not the art that is to blame, but the wrong organization of society
...
"But even if we admit the inadmissible - that is, that methods can be found to
make it possible for all people to benefit from art (or what is regarded as art
among us) - another consideration presents itself, showing why present-day art
cannot be the whole of art, namely, that it is totally incomprehensible for the
people. Poetic works were once written in Latin, but nowadays works of art are
as incomprehensible for the people as if they were written in Sanskrit. To this
the usual reply is that if the people do not understand our art now, it only
proves that they are undeveloped, exactly as it has been with every new step in
art. First it was not understood, but later they got used to it ...
"And therefore, if art is an important thing, a spiritual blessing, as
necessary for all people as religion (as admirers of art like to say), it must
then be accessible to all people. And if it cannot become art for all people,
then one of two things: either art is not as important as it is made out to be,
or the art which we call art is not important.
"This dilemma is insoluble, and therefore intelligent but immoral people boldly
resolve it by denying one side of it - namely, the right of the popular masses
to benefity from art. These people give direct utterance to what lies at the
heart of the matter, which is that only the schöne Geister, the elect, as the
romantics called them, or the 'supermen', as they have been called by
Nietzsche's followers, can partake of and benefit from the supremely beautiful
(in their understanding) - that is, the loftiest pleasure of art. The rest, the
crude herd, unable to experience these pleasures, must serve the lofty pleasures
of this higher race of men. Those who voice such views at least do not pretend
and do not want to combine the uncombinable, but admit directly what happens to
be the case - namely, that our is the art of the upper classes only ...
"Not to mention the moral consequences for European society of this singling
out from the whole area of art and bestowing importance upon an art not
deserving of such evaluation, this perversion of art weakened art itself and
drove it almost to ruin. The first consequence was that art lost the infinitely
diverse and profound religious content proper to it. The second consequence was
that, having only a small circle of people in mind, it lost beauty of form,
became fanciful and unclear; and the firth and chief consequence was that it
ceased to be sincere and became artificial and cerebral."
Pages 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59
"When an artist of the whole people - such as Greek artists or the Jewish
prophets once were - created his works, he naturally strove to say what he had
to say in such a fashion that his work would be understood by all people. But
when an artist created for a small circle of people who lived in exceptional
conditions, or even for one person and his courtiers, for a pope, a cardinal, a
king, a duke, a queen, a king's mistress, he naturally sought only to influence
these people who were known to him and who lived in certain conditions with
which he was familiar. And this easier way of calling up feelings pushed the
artist involuntarily towards expressing himself in allusions unclear to everyone
else and comprehensible only to the initiate. First of all, one could say more
that way, and, secondly, this manner of expression contained within itself, even
for the initiate, a certain special charm of obscurity. This manner of
expression, consisting of euphemisms, mythological and historical allusions,
came into use more and more, and seems to have reached its extreme limits
recently in so-called decadent art. Recently, not only have vaguness,
mysteriousness, obscurity and inaccessibility to the masses been considered a
merit and condition of the peticality of artistic works, but so, too, have
imprecision, indefiniteness and ineloquence ...
"Thus, among the new poets, obscurity is made a dogma ... but it is not only
French writers who think this way. The poets of all other nationalities think
and act in the same way: Germans, Scandinavians, Italians, Russians and
Englishmen; all modern artists in all branches of art think in the same way; in
painting, in sculpture, and in music. Guided by Nietzsche and Wagner, artists of
modern times think that there is no need for them to be understood by the crude
masses, that it is enough for them to evoke poetic states in 'the best nurtured
men', to use the expression of one English aesthetician."
-- Pages 63, 65
"As soon as the art of the upper classes became separate from the art of the
whole people, there arose the conviction that art can be art and yet be
incomprehensible to the masses. As soon as this thesis was allowed, it
inevitably became necessary to allow that art may be comprehensible only to a
small number of the elect, and, finally, only for two, or one - a best friend,
one's own self. This is what modern artists say straight out: 'I create and I
understand myself; if others do not understand me, so much the worse for them.'
"The assertion that art can be good art and yet be incomprehensible is so
wrong, its consequences are so pernicious for art, and it is at the same time so
widespread, so embedded in our notions, that no explanation of its utter
incongruity can suffice.
"Nothing is more common than to hear said of alleged works of art that they are
very good but very difficult to understand. We are used to the assertion, and
yet to say that a work of art is good but incomprehensible is the same as saying
of some kind of food that it is very good but people cannot eat it. People may
not like rotten cheese, putrid grouse and other such dishes appreciated by
gastronomes with perverted taste, but bread and fruit are only good when people
like them. It is the same with art: perverted art may be incomprehensible to
people, but good art is always understood by everyone.
"It is said that the best works of art are such that they cannot be understood
by the majority and are accessible only to the elect, who are prepared to
understand these great works. But if the majority do not understand, they must
be given an explanation, the knowledge necessary for understanding. But it turns
out that this knowledge does not exist, that the works cannot be explained, and
therefore those who say that the majority do not understand good works of art
give no explanations, but say that in order to understand one must read, look
at, or listen to the same work over and over again. But this is not to explain,
it is to make accustomed. And one can get accustomed to anything, even the
worst. As it is possible to get people accustomed to rotten food, vodka,
tobacco, opium, so it is possible to get them accustomed to bad art, which is in
fact being done ...
"Great works of art are great only because they are accessible and
comprehensible to everyone ...
"And therefore, if art does not move us, one must not say that the cause is the
spectator's or listener's incomprehension, but one can and must conclude that it
is either bad art or not art at all.
"The difference between art and mental activity, which requires preparation and
a certain sequence of learning (so that one cannot each trigonometry to someone
who does not know geometry), is precisely that art affects people independently
of their degree of development and education, that the charm of a picture, of
sounds, of images infects any man, on whatever level of development he may
stand.
"The business of art consists precisely in making understandable and accessible
that which might be incomprehensible and inaccessible in the form of reasoning.
Usually, when a person receives a truly artistic impression, it seems to him
that he knew it all along, only he was unable to express it ...
"A man of the people reads a book, looks at a painting, listens to a drama of a
symphony, and feels nothing. He is told that that is because he does not know
how to understand it. They promise to show a man a certain spectavle - he comes
in and sees nothing. He is told that that is because his sight has not been
prepared for this spectacle. But the man know that he can see everything
perfectly well. And if he does not see what they promised to show him, he merely
concludes (quite correctly) that those who undertook to show him the spectacle
did not fulfil their undertaking. In the same way, and quite correctly, a man of
the people draws conclusions about the works of art of our society, which do not
call up any feelings in him. And therefore, to say that a man is not moved by my
art because he is still very stupid, which is both presumptuous and very brazen,
is to pervert the roles and shift the blame from the sick head to the sound ...
"But the main thing is that, once we allow that art can be art while being
incomprehensible to certain people of sound mind, there is then no reason why
some circle of perverted people should not create works that titillate their
perverted feelings and are incomprehensible to anyone except themselves, and
call these works art, which in fact is now being done by the so-called
decadents.
"The course art has been taking may be likened to placing on a circle of
diameter circles of smaller and smaller diameters, thus forming a cone the tip
of which ceases to be a circle at all. This very thing has happened with the art
of our time."
Pages 79, 80, 81, 83
This is all I have time to quote at present. More may follow in the future.
Regards,
Iian Neill
________________________________________________________________________
If you are interested in the Old Masters, and 19th century art
in particular, feel free to visit my new archive, THE RENAISSANCE CAFÉ:
http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/galliano/293/index.html
My personal home-page (with my student art work) can be found here:
http://student.uq.edu.au/~s367558/index.html
Charles Eicher
<s36...@student.uq.edu.au> wrote:
> All of this discussion on art, objectivity and aesthetics in general
revived my
> interest in Tolstoy's essay, "What is Art?" I have selected passages from
there,
> which are by no means representative of the entire work, but do go some way to
> capturing the flavour of it, and I have posted them here to see what news
ideas
> might be stirred up. Even if one is not Christian or an atheist - like
myself -
> one is not prevented from appreciating the immense importance of this
work. All
> one need do is replace the words "religion" with "philosophy" and
"Christianity"
> with the moral system of your choice, and I think you will find his views as
> relevant today as they were in 1910.
Excuse me if I disagree totally. Tolstoy's remarks are exclusively in a
Christian mode, a product of the renaissance. In those times, "God's
creation" was considered perfection (like the crystal spheres containing
the sun and planets rotating around the earth) and an artist was somehow
divinely inspired to reveal His creation through his art. What bullshit.
> The first thirty-six pages of Tolstoy's landmark essay, "What is Art?" or so
> are devoted to the consideration of what art is, as understood by the
> influential philosophical figures of his era, back to the 18th century
and even
> Ancient Greece.
And in doing so, ignores about 75% of the world's history. The "Western
world" is NOT the whole of humanity nor of its art history.
> ..Here I shall quote Tolstoy:
>
> "To the question, what is this art to which are offered in sacrifice the
labours
> of millions of people, the very lives of people, and even morality, the
existing
> aesthetic systems give answers all of which come down to saying that hte
aim of
> art is beauty, and that beauty is known by the pleasure it gives, and that the
> pleasure given by art is a good and important thing. That is, that pleasure is
> good because it is pleasure ... And therefore, strange as it is to say,
despite
> the mountains of books written on art, no precise definition of art has
yet been
> made. The reason for this is that the concept of beauty has been placed at the
> foundation of the concept of art."
This is exactly the lame sort of argument I hear from uneducated rubes when
I ask them to define art. They spout rubbish about how art is beauty, and
beauty gives their lives pleasure. Balderdash. There is plenty of Real
Art(tm) that is ugly.
> "Art begins when a man, with the purpose of communicating to other people a
> feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself and expresses it
> by certain external signs ... Feelings, the most diverse, very strong and very
> weak, very significant and very worthless, very bad and very good, if
only they
> infect the reader, the spectator, the listener, constitute the subject of art
> ...
Old school thinking, totally obsolete in this modern age. Reality and
representing it with beauty, or documenting one's feelings about a subject
is NOT the goal of art, although it might have been up until the end of the
Impressionist era. Representation(ism) means that the object represented is
the subject of the artwork. Today, that is insufficient. Today, the subject
of art is Art.
> "To call up in oneself a feeling once experienced and, having called it
up, to
> convey it by means of movements, lines, colours, sounds, images expressed in
> words, so that others experience the same feeling - in this consists the
> activity of art. Art is that human activity which consists in one man's
> consciously conveying to others, by certain external signs, the feelings
he has
> experienced, and in others being infected by those feelings and also
> experiencing them ...
blah blah blah. Rubbish. Let us consider a specific case. There is a famous
sculpture by Chris Burden called "The Big Wheel." It is a 20 foot flywheel
weighing about 20 tons, mounted in a wooden brace. The flywheel is brought
up to speed by a motorcycle, its rear wheel against the flywheel. So, are
we supposed to contemplate its movement, line, color, sound, etc? No, we
are supposed to consider the immense kinetic energy stored in the flywheel,
energy sufficient to destroy the building if released. Other metaphors like
"the wheel of life" also come to mind. The abstraction of "kinetic energy"
IS the artwork, the apparatus is merely the carrier of this information.
> "Just as, owing to man's capacity for understanding thoughts expressed in
> words, any man can learn all that mankind has done for him in the realm of
> thought, can in the present, owing to the capacity for understanding other
> people's thoughts, participate in other people's activity, and can himself,
> owing to this capacity, convey the thoughts he has received from others,
and his
> own as they have emerged in him, to his contemporaries and to posterity; so,
> owing to man's capacity for being infected by other people's feelings through
> art, he has access to all that mankind has experienced before him in the realm
> of feeling, he has access to the feelings experienced by his
contemporaries, to
> feelings lived by men thousands of years ago, and it is possible for him to
> convey his feelings to other people."
How typical, for a writer like Tolstoy to come up with an over-valuation of
"social evolution" through the transmission of knowledge (i.e. books). Such
an ego!
> "We are accustomed to regard as art only what we read, hear, see in theatres,
> concerts and exhibitions, buildings, statues, poems, novels ... But all
this is
> only a small portion of the art [as creative activity] by which we communicate
> with one another in life. The whole of human life is filled with works of
art of
> various kinds, from lullabies, jokes, mimicry, home decoration, clothing,
> utensils, to church services and solemn processors. All this is the
activity of
> art. Thus we call art, in the narrow sense of the word, not the entire human
> activity that conveys feelings, but only that which we for some reason single
> out from all this activity and to which we give special significance."
I assume that the bracketed text is your insertion. Tolstoy totally fails
to make a distinction between creativity and art. You are putting words in
Tolstoy's mouth, this is not what he meant.
> "The appreciation of the merits of art - that is, of the feelings it
conveys -
> depend on people's understanding of the meaning of life, on what they see as
> good and evil in life. Good and evil in life are determined by what are called
> religions ...
> "Religions are indicators of the highest understanding of life
accessible at a
> given time in a given society to the best of the leading people, which is
> inevitably and unfailingly approached by all the rest of society. And, only,
> because of that, religions have always served and still serve as a basis for
> evaluationg people's feelings.
ROTFLMAO!!! Religion is the greatest destroyer of humanity. Tolstoy
believes Christian religion to be identical to all other religions in its
ideals. As a buddhist, I disagree vehemently.
> ..If their feelings bring people closer to the
> ideal to which their religion points, agree with it, do not contradict it
- they
> are good; if they move them away from it, disagree with it, contradict it
- they
> are bad ...
Good Art=religious endorsement. Bad Art=religious heresy=Maplethorpe,
Serrano, etc. This argument makes me want to puke.
> "If religion places the meaning of life in earthly happiness, in beauty and
> strength, then art that conveys the joy and zest of life will be
considered good
> art, while art that conveys feelings of delicacy or dejectin will be bad
art, as
> was thought among the Greeks ...
Jeez, for a second there, I thought that sentence was going to say "beauty,
strength, and Liebensraum." These "beauty and strengthy" themes were the
standard aesthetic of the official Nazi-endorsed painters, whose works were
universally BAD. And the "Degenerate Artists" were more than happy to
depict life as it REALLY is, and were condemned for it. To use another
specific example, I was just looking at painting by a Brucke artist, Heckel
I think. It was entitled something like "Convalescing woman" and the woman
is painted in sickly greenish-yellow colors. She looks half dead, the
painting conveys the clear impression of her fragility and the impermanence
of life. And its a masterpiece.
> "Always, in all times and in all human societies, there has existed this
> religious consciousness, common to all people of the society, of what is good
> and what is bad,
Absolutely untrue.
> ..and it is this religious consciousness that determines the
> worth of the feelings conveyed by art.
Maybe Jesse Helms feels that way, but I don't know a single artist who
would agree.
> ..And therefore, always, in all nations,
> art that conveyed feelings resulting from the religious consciousness
common to
> the people of the nation was recognized as good and was encouraged, while art
> that conveyed feelings discordant with the religious consciousness was
> recognized as bad and was rejected;
Maybe true in 1910, but not today, unless you're a member of a conservative
minority fringe faction like the Christian Coalition.
> ..the whole enormous field of art by which the
> people communicated among themselves was not valued at all, and was rejected
> only when it ran counter to the religious consciousness of the time."
It is entirely unclear what Tolstoy means here, perhaps he means "folk
art"...? Advances in art have never come through folk arts, but through the
mainstream. Sometimes folk arts influence the mainstream (i.e. cubists
studying African folk art, impressionists studying Japanese folk-art
printmaking) but these influences are still filtered through a
sophisticated artist's aesthetic.
> "We are so used to regarding naively as the best human race not just the
> Caucasian race, but also the Anglo-Saxon if we are English or American, the
> German if we are German, the Gallo-Latin if we are French, and the Slavic
if we
> are Russian, that when we speak of our art, we are as fully convinced
that it is
> not only true art, but is also the best and the only art. Yet not only is our
> art not the only art, as the Bible used to be regarded as the only book,
but it
> is not even the art of all Christian mankind, but just the art of a very small
> section of that part of mankind...
Yet Tolstoy makes these same naive mistakes repeatedly.
> "To the observation that if our art is the true art, all people ought to
> benefit from it, the usual objection is that if not all benefit from existing
> art, it is not the art that is to blame, but the wrong organization of society
I haven't heard anyone even use the term "true art" so I don't know what
this could possibly mean. Is Art somehow supposed to be a representation of
"Truth"..? Impossible. It has even been proven mathematically that there is
no such concept as "Ultimate Truth" available to any finite system. "Truth"
is not a concept that mankind is equipped to handle. But this is not the
time for a discussion of Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem and its social
implications, it is so far beyond Tolstoy's primitive thinking. Its how
Postmodernists think, but incomprehensible to anyone stuck in Tolstoy's
mode.
> "But even if we admit the inadmissible - that is, that methods can be
found to
> make it possible for all people to benefit from art (or what is regarded
as art
> among us) -
What a ridiculous concept, that you can somehow make "all people benefit
from art." It harkens back to the era of the French Revolution and David.
David's paintings used to be paraded through the streets, under some odd
premise that seeing his depictions of civic virtues (as depicted in ancient
fables) would somehow improve the French populace, and instill these same
virtues. What crap.
> ..another consideration presents itself, showing why present-day art
> cannot be the whole of art, namely, that it is totally incomprehensible
for the
> people. Poetic works were once written in Latin, but nowadays works of art are
> as incomprehensible for the people as if they were written in Sanskrit.
To this
> the usual reply is that if the people do not understand our art now, it only
> proves that they are undeveloped, exactly as it has been with every new
step in
> art. First it was not understood, but later they got used to it ...
First, a bit of deconstructivist analysis.. Tolstoy uses the term
"sanskrit" as modern people might use the word "Martian". I will point out
that the vast majority of humans on this earth believe in a religion that
uses Sanskrit scriptures as its basis. I myself recite a sanskrit scripture
almost every day.
Anyway, who are these "people" who don't understand modern art that Tolstoy
keeps referring to? The uneducated masses, ready for
propagandizing^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Heducation through art? That is a
wholly Russian concept, for example, the AgitProp movement associated with
the Constructivists. They actually made "Art Trains" that travelled
throughout russia, spreading the Communist doctrine through drama,
painting, etc. This is an unnecessarily elitist concept.
> "And therefore, if art is an important thing, a spiritual blessing, as
> necessary for all people as religion (as admirers of art like to say), it must
> then be accessible to all people. And if it cannot become art for all people,
> then one of two things: either art is not as important as it is made out
to be,
> or the art which we call art is not important.
?!?!??? In other words, if art is not immediately accessible to "all
people" then its unimportant. I would argue exactly the opposite. A "smiley
face" is immediately accessible to everyone, ubiquitous, pleasant, perhaps
beautiful to some, but definitely NOT art. An important artwork might be
totally unappreciated by the public yet turn the entire world around. A
good example would be "demoiselle d'Avignon" (god I hate using Picasso as
an example, but everyone knows these works).. Picasso was afraid to exhibit
it, and it sat hidden in his studio for several years after its completion.
It was secretly shown only to a few of his artist friends, who immediately
understood its importance and it affected their work. "demoiselle" is all
the things that Tolstoy hates, salacious, depressing, ugly, blasphemous,
unrefined, etc etc but it changed the entirety of Art History.
> "This dilemma is insoluble, and therefore intelligent but immoral people
boldly
> resolve it by denying one side of it - namely, the right of the popular masses
> to benefity from art.
It seems to me, it is far more immoral to censor artists like Maplethorpe
and Serrano who clearly offend the "popular masses" sensibility. The
"popular masses" generally like crap. That has no effect on me, I never
think about the hoi polloi when I'm painting, I think about other painters.
> ..These people give direct utterance to what lies at the
> heart of the matter, which is that only the schöne Geister, the elect, as the
> romantics called them, or the 'supermen', as they have been called by
> Nietzsche's followers, can partake of and benefit from the supremely beautiful
> (in their understanding) - that is, the loftiest pleasure of art. The
rest, the
> crude herd, unable to experience these pleasures, must serve the lofty
pleasures
> of this higher race of men. Those who voice such views at least do not pretend
> and do not want to combine the uncombinable, but admit directly what
happens to
> be the case - namely, that our is the art of the upper classes only ...
I will remind people that the "ubermensch" that Tolstoy is thinking of is
the Russian Aristocracy, who lived in gilded mansions full of expensive
paintings, while the vast majority of Russia starved to death. No doubt, he
was correct to condemn this abuse. But today, art is accessible to everyone
that wants it. There ARE supermen, those artists at the pinnacle of the art
world. And they are knocked down by the next one to come along. There IS an
upper class in the art world. This doesn't make the minor artists any less
important, but someone has to "take the point" in any advancement.
> "Not to mention the moral consequences for European society of this singling
> out from the whole area of art and bestowing importance upon an art not
> deserving of such evaluation, this perversion of art weakened art itself and
> drove it almost to ruin.
Again, Tolstoy rants against those "snobs" who snub the "people's art" and
I haven't got a clue what he's talking about.
> ..The first consequence was that art lost the infinitely
> diverse and profound religious content proper to it.
This assumes that religious content is the only proper content for art.
Maybe the Pope still believes this, but nobody else does.
> ..The second consequence was
> that, having only a small circle of people in mind, it lost beauty of form,
> became fanciful and unclear; and the firth and chief consequence was that it
> ceased to be sincere and became artificial and cerebral."
It should be unnecessary for me to poke holes in this statement, the flaws
are so obvious. Many art movements have been targeted at a group of
"literati" and have become more focused and powerful for that focus.
> "When an artist of the whole people - such as Greek artists or the Jewish
> prophets once were - created his works, he naturally strove to say what he had
> to say in such a fashion that his work would be understood by all people.
Because in those days, modes of communication were much more primitive.
> ..But
> when an artist created for a small circle of people who lived in exceptional
> conditions, or even for one person and his courtiers, for a pope, a
cardinal, a
> king, a duke, a queen, a king's mistress, he naturally sought only to
influence
> these people who were known to him and who lived in certain conditions with
> which he was familiar. And this easier way of calling up feelings pushed the
> artist involuntarily towards expressing himself in allusions unclear to
everyone
> else and comprehensible only to the initiate. First of all, one could say more
> that way, and, secondly, this manner of expression contained within
itself, even
> for the initiate, a certain special charm of obscurity. This manner of
> expression, consisting of euphemisms, mythological and historical allusions,
> came into use more and more, and seems to have reached its extreme limits
> recently in so-called decadent art. Recently, not only have vaguness,
> mysteriousness, obscurity and inaccessibility to the masses been considered a
> merit and condition of the peticality of artistic works, but so, too, have
> imprecision, indefiniteness and ineloquence ...
Tolstoy makes his most fundamental error here. Let me cite a specific
example. Die Brucke is a group of "decadent artists" banned by the Nazis as
elitists and degenerates, on much the same terms that Tolstoy uses here.
However, one of their formal aesthetic decisions was to work in forms more
akin to "people's art" (i.e. rough woodcuts instead of fine engravings).
Their whole intent was to connect MORE with the "people's" aesthetics.
However, this was completely misunderstood during the time of the rise of
Nazism. It takes no "initiation" to understand much of the Brucke art, but
the entirety of German was already "initiated" and mind-controlled into
accepting the Nazi dogma, which is clearly seen in the official Nazi
artists. The Nazi artists produced "beautiful" art but it was aesthetically
barren. It could only be appreciated by those indoctrinated to the Nazi
ideals.
> "Thus, among the new poets, obscurity is made a dogma ... but it is not only
> French writers who think this way. The poets of all other nationalities think
> and act in the same way: Germans, Scandinavians, Italians, Russians and
> Englishmen; all modern artists in all branches of art think in the same
way; in
> painting, in sculpture, and in music. Guided by Nietzsche and Wagner,
artists of
> modern times think that there is no need for them to be understood by the
crude
> masses, that it is enough for them to evoke poetic states in 'the best
nurtured
> men', to use the expression of one English aesthetician."
And what is wrong with ignoring the masses? Did Einstein care that only 5
or 6 men on earth understood the implications of E=mc^2? He changed the
world because at least ONE person recognized its importance.
> "As soon as the art of the upper classes became separate from the art of the
> whole people, there arose the conviction that art can be art and yet be
> incomprehensible to the masses. As soon as this thesis was allowed, it
> inevitably became necessary to allow that art may be comprehensible only to a
> small number of the elect, and, finally, only for two, or one - a best friend,
> one's own self. This is what modern artists say straight out: 'I create and I
> understand myself; if others do not understand me, so much the worse for
them.'
> "The assertion that art can be good art and yet be incomprehensible is so
> wrong, its consequences are so pernicious for art, and it is at the same
time so
> widespread, so embedded in our notions, that no explanation of its utter
> incongruity can suffice.
I totally disagree. Tolstoy assumes that an artist has a clear message and
a clear motivation for creating a work. Sometimes there IS no clear
purpose, artwork is a process of exploration, not a finished product
hanging on a gallery wall.
> "Nothing is more common than to hear said of alleged works of art that
they are
> very good but very difficult to understand. We are used to the assertion, and
> yet to say that a work of art is good but incomprehensible is the same as
saying
> of some kind of food that it is very good but people cannot eat it. People may
> not like rotten cheese, putrid grouse and other such dishes appreciated by
> gastronomes with perverted taste, but bread and fruit are only good when
people
> like them.
Or maybe it might also be good when Fleming discovers penicillin mold
growing on a spoiled fruit. Another elitist...
> ..It is the same with art: perverted art may be incomprehensible to
> people, but good art is always understood by everyone.
This is the most exceptionally stupid argument I have ever heard.
> "It is said that the best works of art are such that they cannot be
understood
> by the majority and are accessible only to the elect, who are prepared to
> understand these great works. But if the majority do not understand, they must
> be given an explanation, the knowledge necessary for understanding.
And of course, new knowledge is a bad thing, right?
> ..But it turns
> out that this knowledge does not exist, that the works cannot be
explained, and
> therefore those who say that the majority do not understand good works of art
> give no explanations, but say that in order to understand one must read, look
> at, or listen to the same work over and over again. But this is not to
explain,
> it is to make accustomed. And one can get accustomed to anything, even the
> worst. As it is possible to get people accustomed to rotten food, vodka,
> tobacco, opium, so it is possible to get them accustomed to bad art,
which is in
> fact being done ...
One can even become accustomed to bad aesthetic theory, i.e. "good art must
be accessible to everyone."
> "Great works of art are great only because they are accessible and
> comprehensible to everyone ...
> "And therefore, if art does not move us, one must not say that the cause
is the
> spectator's or listener's incomprehension, but one can and must conclude
that it
> is either bad art or not art at all.
And here, Tolstoy is condemning the art world to mediocrity, if it follows
his rules. For a further exploration of this concept, I recommend a short
story by Kurt Vonnegut called "Harrison Bergeron." For those who might
condemn me as an elitist, I will note that this story was also made into a
movie, so even the illiterate can experience it. In the society depicted in
this story, exceptionally talented people are given handicaps, for example,
an exceptional ballerina is forced to wear lead weights during her
performances, so as to not outshine the less-talented dancers. I will not
reveal the ending, but suffice to say that it has always been the goal of
talented people to rise above the mediocrity of mass taste.
> "The difference between art and mental activity, which requires
preparation and
> a certain sequence of learning (so that one cannot each trigonometry to
someone
> who does not know geometry), is precisely that art affects people
independently
> of their degree of development and education, that the charm of a picture, of
> sounds, of images infects any man, on whatever level of development he may
> stand.
Amazing. Tolstoy blows away his whole argument here. Each person might
appreciate a painting differently, according to their "level of
development"...?? Perhaps this is an appreciation that can be developed?
Apparently Tolstoy believes otherwise, that any man is inherently equipped
to appreciate art. I disagree. I should cite an example. My auto mechanic
came over to my house and saw one of my Claes Oldenburg prints hanging on
the wall. He said "What the HELL is that?" and proceeded to lean right
against the print, examining it closely and leaving a huge oily palmprint
in the middle of the artwork, totally destroying it. Despite my extreme
irritation at the destruction of my print, I attempted to explain the
artwork, but to no avail. The artwork was rather simple, but when I
explained it to him, he said, "Yeah, but what is the POINT?" The practical
skills one develops in tearing down auto engines are not the same
analytical skills used in viewing a complex painting. Art does not function
rationally, despite what Tolstoy might think. The vast majority of modern
art is a rejection of what Duchamp called "retinal art" that is, art
experienced with the eyes but not the brain. Tolstoy places the beauty of
visual appearance as primary in art, it is not even of secondary importance
any more.
> "The business of art consists precisely in making understandable and
accessible
> that which might be incomprehensible and inaccessible in the form of
reasoning.
> Usually, when a person receives a truly artistic impression, it seems to him
> that he knew it all along, only he was unable to express it ...
And perhaps the artist also is unable to fully form his thought, and it
receives incomplete expression in his work. Its all about process, not
results.
> "A man of the people reads a book, looks at a painting, listens to a
drama of a
> symphony, and feels nothing. He is told that that is because he does not know
> how to understand it. They promise to show a man a certain spectavle - he
comes
> in and sees nothing. He is told that that is because his sight has not been
> prepared for this spectacle. But the man know that he can see everything
> perfectly well. And if he does not see what they promised to show him, he
merely
> concludes (quite correctly) that those who undertook to show him the spectacle
> did not fulfil their undertaking.
Let me cite a perfect example. I was at a major show of Barnett Newman, and
one room was filled with dozens of his "black paintings." They were all
quite nice and subtly different, despite being essentially black canvases.
As I sat and studied several of these paintings, I lost count of all the
people who came into the room, looked briefly at the paintings and
dismissed them as all identical after only a few seconds. However, anyone
who knows about these paintings knows they are intended to be viewed
slowly, for a prolonged period, whereupon the subtle color variations
become obvious, and afterimage effects make the colors positively glow.
These paintings are founded on principles that even Tolstoy would approve,
they are based on physiological and psychological apparatus in the eye and
brain of the viewer, any human being could experience what Newman intended.
As I sat there for a few minutes, looking at one painting, I was
approached by one curious elderly gentleman. He asked me what was there in
this black painting that was worth looking at for so long. I merely told
him to sit down and look at one for about 3 minutes, and then tell ME what
it was all about. He sat down, and gradually, I could see a smile break
out, he recognized what was IN the painting. Suddenly he knew what Newman's
paintings were all about.
For those people who gave the painting 4 seconds of viewing, they failed to
even experience the painting at all. This is not the fault of the artist,
he clearly told everyone how the paintings were intended to be viewed. It
is not a huge burden to ask a viewer to spend 3 minutes instead of 3
seconds. Is the viewer's incomprehension due to his own haste, or is it the
artist's failure to convey his message due to an "unreasonable" expectation
that the viewer would take in the work slowly?
> ..In the same way, and quite correctly, a man of
> the people draws conclusions about the works of art of our society, which
do not
> call up any feelings in him. And therefore, to say that a man is not
moved by my
> art because he is still very stupid, which is both presumptuous and very
brazen,
> is to pervert the roles and shift the blame from the sick head to the
sound ...
> "But the main thing is that, once we allow that art can be art while being
> incomprehensible to certain people of sound mind, there is then no reason why
> some circle of perverted people should not create works that titillate their
> perverted feelings and are incomprehensible to anyone except themselves, and
> call these works art, which in fact is now being done by the so-called
> decadents.
I find it wholly fitting that this argument is coming from an elite,
privleged writer like Tolstoy. I think he's obliquely criticizing other
less-privleged, "degenerate" Russian authors (his competition). Such an
ego!
> "The course art has been taking may be likened to placing on a circle of
> diameter circles of smaller and smaller diameters, thus forming a cone the tip
> of which ceases to be a circle at all. This very thing has happened with
the art
> of our time."
And so it always will be. Art is full of techniques and tricks, some of
which must be concealed from the public just as a magician never reveals
his secrets or the illusion would be spoiled. Some call this elitism but I
prefer to think of it as merely specialization. There have always been
criticisms of the "Elite" in art, and many have been more precise and well
well concieved than this lame screed by a religious fanatic. I will close
merely with a statement from one of my art instructors, who is a terrible
painter, and a terrible idiot but he did say ONE intelligent thing:
"Everyone accuses modern artists of being elitists, so I finally decided to
look it up in the dictionary. It said Elitism is when one accumulates
special knowledge and keeps it for one's exclusive use. Hell, I'm no
elitist, if anyone asks me, I'll tell them everything I know, and talk
their ear off!"
> This is all I have time to quote at present. More may follow in the
future.
I sure hope not. Either you're selecting really bad texts, or your excerpts
are really bad, but in the end, this is just really BAD aesthetic theory. I
wouldn't normally go to such lengths to debunk such a ridiculous piece of
crap, but due to its famous writer, people might be inclined to believe it.
----------------
Charles Eicher
cei...@inav.net
----------------
Iian Neill
> > revived my interest in Tolstoy's essay, "What is Art?" I have selected passages
> from
> > there, which are by no means representative of the entire work, but do go some
> way to
> > capturing the flavour of it, and I have posted them here to see what news
> > ideas might be stirred up. Even if one is not Christian or an atheist - like
> > myself - one is not prevented from appreciating the immense importance of this
> > work. All one need do is replace the words "religion" with "philosophy" and
> > "Christianity" with the moral system of your choice, and I think you will find
> his views as
> > relevant today as they were in 1910.
>
> Excuse me if I disagree totally. Tolstoy's remarks are exclusively in a
> Christian mode, a product of the renaissance. In those times, "God's
> creation" was considered perfection (like the crystal spheres containing
> the sun and planets rotating around the earth) and an artist was somehow
> divinely inspired to reveal His creation through his art. What bullshit.
I won't disagree with your disapproval of the religious justification of art - I am
an atheist, myself, so I don't see art as being divinely inspired. I leave the
explanation of creativity to the psychologists and neuro-scientists of the future.
When I wrote that one could replace the word "religion" with "philosophy" I did so
because both fields have a few things in common - both have an epistemology and
ethical systems, to name but two. When Tolstoy says that that which was good in a
given era was determined by the "religious consciousness" of the time, he was in
effect claiming that the 'philosophical consciousness' of a given period determines
what we consider good and bad (in art as well as in life). Anyone can see that this
applies to our world today. The Post-Modernists have their own views on what is good
and bad, and these are reflected in their aesthetic theories. The same can be said
of any period.
The philosophical consciousness of a given period determines what is to be
considered good or bad art by that society.
> > The first thirty-six pages of Tolstoy's landmark essay, "What is Art?" or so
> > are devoted to the consideration of what art is, as understood by the
> > influential philosophical figures of his era, back to the 18th century
> > and even Ancient Greece.
>
> And in doing so, ignores about 75% of the world's history. The "Western
> world" is NOT the whole of humanity nor of its art history.
The philosophers Tolstoy criticized ignored "about 75% of the world's history" -
Tolstoy himself did not.
> > "To the question, what is this art to which are offered in sacrifice the
> > labours of millions of people, the very lives of people, and even morality, the
> > existing aesthetic systems give answers all of which come down to saying that
> hte
> > aim of art is beauty, and that beauty is known by the pleasure it gives, and
> that the
> > pleasure given by art is a good and important thing. That is, that pleasure is
> > good because it is pleasure ... And therefore, strange as it is to say,
> > despite the mountains of books written on art, no precise definition of art has
> > yet been made. The reason for this is that the concept of beauty has been placed
> at the
> > foundation of the concept of art."
>
> This is exactly the lame sort of argument I hear from uneducated rubes when
> I ask them to define art. They spout rubbish about how art is beauty, and
> beauty gives their lives pleasure. Balderdash. There is plenty of Real
> Art(tm) that is ugly.
That was what Tolstoy thought as well - the quoted paragraph (above) was his summary
of the aesthetic-theoretical situationf rom 1750 up to 1910.
> > "Art begins when a man, with the purpose of communicating to other people a
> > feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself and expresses it
> > by certain external signs ... Feelings, the most diverse, very strong and very
> > weak, very significant and very worthless, very bad and very good, if
> > only they infect the reader, the spectator, the listener, constitute the subject
> of art
> > ...
>
> Old school thinking, totally obsolete in this modern age. Reality and
> representing it with beauty, or documenting one's feelings about a subject
> is NOT the goal of art, although it might have been up until the end of the
> Impressionist era. Representation(ism) means that the object represented is
> the subject of the artwork. Today, that is insufficient. Today, the subject
> of art is Art.
Tolstoy would certainly disagree with this.
> > "To call up in oneself a feeling once experienced and, having called it
> > up, to convey it by means of movements, lines, colours, sounds, images expressed
> in
> > words, so that others experience the same feeling - in this consists the
> > activity of art. Art is that human activity which consists in one man's
> > consciously conveying to others, by certain external signs, the feelings
> > he has experienced, and in others being infected by those feelings and also
> > experiencing them ...
>
> blah blah blah. Rubbish. Let us consider a specific case. There is a famous
> sculpture by Chris Burden called "The Big Wheel." It is a 20 foot flywheel
> weighing about 20 tons, mounted in a wooden brace. The flywheel is brought
> up to speed by a motorcycle, its rear wheel against the flywheel. So, are
> we supposed to contemplate its movement, line, color, sound, etc? No, we
> are supposed to consider the immense kinetic energy stored in the flywheel,
> energy sufficient to destroy the building if released. Other metaphors like
> "the wheel of life" also come to mind. The abstraction of "kinetic energy"
> IS the artwork, the apparatus is merely the carrier of this information.
The philosophical consciousness of Post-Modernism declares that "Big Wheel" to be
art - and perhaps even good art. Other philosophical consciosnesses (such as mine)
would consider it not to be art.
To prove whether it is or is not art one would have to demonstrated unequivocally
that one of these philosophies is superior to the other. Why? Because if one is
making judgements about art, one is referring to one's own philosophical view of the
universe. When these judgements clash with others', it is usually due to a clash of
philosophies.
Tolstoy demonstrated quite clearly that one cannot judge art only according to
"Beauty".
> > "Just as, owing to man's capacity for understanding thoughts expressed in
> > words, any man can learn all that mankind has done for him in the realm of
> > thought, can in the present, owing to the capacity for understanding other
> > people's thoughts, participate in other people's activity, and can himself,
> > owing to this capacity, convey the thoughts he has received from others,
> > and his own as they have emerged in him, to his contemporaries and to
> posterity; so,
> > owing to man's capacity for being infected by other people's feelings through
> > art, he has access to all that mankind has experienced before him in the realm
> > of feeling, he has access to the feelings experienced by his
> > contemporaries, to feelings lived by men thousands of years ago, and it is
> possible for him to
> > convey his feelings to other people."
>
> How typical, for a writer like Tolstoy to come up with an over-valuation of
> "social evolution" through the transmission of knowledge (i.e. books). Such
> an ego!
You deny that social evolution has taken place through the auspices of literature?
Couldn't one say that the Bible or the Bagahvad-gita were influential books? And
what of the theories of David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Aristotle, or Michel Foucault?
Perhaps one "over-valuates" them, as well?
> > "We are accustomed to regard as art only what we read, hear, see in theatres,
> > concerts and exhibitions, buildings, statues, poems, novels ... But all
> > this is only a small portion of the art [as creative activity] by which we
> communicate
> > with one another in life. The whole of human life is filled with works of
> > art of various kinds, from lullabies, jokes, mimicry, home decoration, clothing,
>
> > utensils, to church services and solemn processors. All this is the
> > activity of art. Thus we call art, in the narrow sense of the word, not the
> entire human
> > activity that conveys feelings, but only that which we for some reason single
> > out from all this activity and to which we give special significance."
>
> I assume that the bracketed text is your insertion. Tolstoy totally fails
> to make a distinction between creativity and art. You are putting words in
> Tolstoy's mouth, this is not what he meant.
The bracketed text is my insertion. Tolstoy's paragraph can be read in the sense
that I intimated.
> > "The appreciation of the merits of art - that is, of the feelings it
> > conveys - depend on people's understanding of the meaning of life, on what they
> see as
> > good and evil in life. Good and evil in life are determined by what are called
> > religions ...
> > "Religions are indicators of the highest understanding of life
> > accessible at a given time in a given society to the best of the leading
> people, which is
> > inevitably and unfailingly approached by all the rest of society. And, only,
> > because of that, religions have always served and still serve as a basis for
> > evaluationg people's feelings.
>
> ROTFLMAO!!! Religion is the greatest destroyer of humanity. Tolstoy
> believes Christian religion to be identical to all other religions in its
> ideals. As a buddhist, I disagree vehemently.
"Religion is the greatest destroyer of humanity ..."
As a Buddhist, do you consider yourself a great destroyer of humanity?
> > ..If their feelings bring people closer to the
> > ideal to which their religion points, agree with it, do not contradict it
> > - they are good; if they move them away from it, disagree with it, contradict
> it
> > - they are bad ...
>
> Good Art=religious endorsement. Bad Art=religious heresy=Maplethorpe,
> Serrano, etc. This argument makes me want to puke.
Nevertheless, that is how art was judged up until the 20th century. I am not saying
that it's right, but that was how history operated. If you look at the Middle Ages,
you will see that pagan statues were condemned, while sculptures of a cowering,
shame-ridden Adam and Eve were praised. This praise was justified according to the
religious consciousness of the time.
In our own time, religion does not have the same influence on aesthetic judgements -
this is why I suggested that it would be more accurate to speak of a "philosophical
consciousness", which is certainly something that our own era has to a large degree.
Thus, when one praises "The Big Wheel" or "Blue Poles", one is relying a
philosophical foundation - one calls abstract expressionism "art" because one's
philosophy allows you to call it such. Other philosophies may not.
> > "If religion places the meaning of life in earthly happiness, in beauty and
> > strength, then art that conveys the joy and zest of life will be
> > considered good art, while art that conveys feelings of delicacy or dejection
> will be bad
> > art, as was thought among the Greeks ...
>
> Jeez, for a second there, I thought that sentence was going to say "beauty,
> strength, and Liebensraum." These "beauty and strengthy" themes were the
> standard aesthetic of the official Nazi-endorsed painters, whose works were
> universally BAD.
Were they? Prove it. What is good, and what is evil? Can we make such judgements
about art? If the art of one regime is "evil" does this necessarily imply that all
works that display beauty and strength are also evil? What should one do about the
works of the Renaissance then?
> And the "Degenerate Artists" were more than happy to
> depict life as it REALLY is, and were condemned for it.
Were they condemned for their views or their techniques? Or both?
> To use another
> specific example, I was just looking at painting by a Brucke artist, Heckel
> I think. It was entitled something like "Convalescing woman" and the woman
> is painted in sickly greenish-yellow colors. She looks half dead, the
> painting conveys the clear impression of her fragility and the impermanence
> of life. And its a masterpiece.
Your philosophical consciousness allows you to call that work a masterpiece.
Mine compells me to call it an aberration.
> > "Always, in all times and in all human societies, there has existed this
> > religious consciousness, common to all people of the society, of what is good
> > and what is bad,
>
> Absolutely untrue.
Can you show me a society before the 20th century which did not have a religion of
some kind? I am genuinely curious.
> > ..and it is this religious consciousness that determines the
> > worth of the feelings conveyed by art.
>
> Maybe Jesse Helms feels that way, but I don't know a single artist who
> would agree.
If one replaces the word "religious" with philosophical (a swap I have justified at
the start of this letter) then one can see that Tolstoy's observation here hits the
nail on the head.
> > ..And therefore, always, in all nations,
> > art that conveyed feelings resulting from the religious consciousness
> > common to the people of the nation was recognized as good and was encouraged,
> while art
> > that conveyed feelings discordant with the religious consciousness was
> > recognized as bad and was rejected;
>
> Maybe true in 1910, but not today, unless you're a member of a conservative
> minority fringe faction like the Christian Coalition.
Modernist critics recognized certain works of art as good, and they encourage them -
and they attack the rest.
Post-Modernist critics seem to have defaulted on the right to use one's own
judgement. I have heard it said that there is "no truth" anymore - and if one's
philosophy holds that to be true (ironically enough), then the art that is praised
will be the kind that conforms to your own philosophical consciousness.
> > ..the whole enormous field of art by which the
> > people communicated among themselves was not valued at all, and was rejected
> > only when it ran counter to the religious consciousness of the time."
>
> It is entirely unclear what Tolstoy means here, perhaps he means "folk
> art"...?
I think that is part of what he means, yes.
> Advances in art have never come through folk arts, but through the
> mainstream. Sometimes folk arts influence the mainstream (i.e. cubists
> studying African folk art, impressionists studying Japanese folk-art
> printmaking) but these influences are still filtered through a
> sophisticated artist's aesthetic.
The Impressionists and the Cubists were (mainly) white male Europeans. Surely
Post-Modernism isn't going to say that the works of such men are more important than
the sculptures of the african tribesman, of the ancient Aztec artisan? Surely this
is discrimination, according to the Post-Modernist philosophical outlook?
> > "To the observation that if our art is the true art, all people ought to
> > benefit from it, the usual objection is that if not all benefit from existing
> > art, it is not the art that is to blame, but the wrong organization of society
>
> I haven't heard anyone even use the term "true art" so I don't know what
> this could possibly mean.
"True art" can be equated with the term "fine art".
> Is Art somehow supposed to be a representation of
> "Truth"..? Impossible.
That is what Tolstoy thought, as well.
> It has even been proven mathematically that there is
> no such concept as "Ultimate Truth" available to any finite system. "Truth"
> is not a concept that mankind is equipped to handle. But this is not the
> time for a discussion of Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem and its social
> implications, it is so far beyond Tolstoy's primitive thinking. Its how
> Postmodernists think, but incomprehensible to anyone stuck in Tolstoy's
> mode.
This is what your own philosophical system compells you to say; and so you judge art
according to this, just as Tolstoy indicated people do.
> > "But even if we admit the inadmissible - that is, that methods can be
> > found to make it possible for all people to benefit from art (or what is
> regarded
> > as art among us) -
>
> What a ridiculous concept, that you can somehow make "all people benefit
> from art." It harkens back to the era of the French Revolution and David.
> David's paintings used to be paraded through the streets, under some odd
> premise that seeing his depictions of civic virtues (as depicted in ancient
> fables) would somehow improve the French populace, and instill these same
> virtues. What crap.
You believe that art should not have a social purpose, then?
> > ..another consideration presents itself, showing why present-day art
> > cannot be the whole of art, namely, that it is totally incomprehensible
> > for the people. Poetic works were once written in Latin, but nowadays works of
> art are
> > as incomprehensible for the people as if they were written in Sanskrit.
> > To this the usual reply is that if the people do not understand our art now, it
> only
> > proves that they are undeveloped, exactly as it has been with every new
> > step in art. First it was not understood, but later they got used to it ...
>
> First, a bit of deconstructivist analysis.. Tolstoy uses the term
> "sanskrit" as modern people might use the word "Martian".
Correct.
> Anyway, who are these "people" who don't understand modern art that Tolstoy
> keeps referring to? The uneducated masses, ready for
> propagandizing^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Heducation through art?
Yes. But not only the "uneducated masses", but also the educated ones.
> That is a
> wholly Russian concept, for example, the AgitProp movement associated with
> the Constructivists. They actually made "Art Trains" that travelled
> throughout russia, spreading the Communist doctrine through drama,
> painting, etc. This is an unnecessarily elitist concept.
Most curious!
> > "And therefore, if art is an important thing, a spiritual blessing, as
> > necessary for all people as religion (as admirers of art like to say), it must
> > then be accessible to all people. And if it cannot become art for all people,
> > then one of two things: either art is not as important as it is made out
> > to be, or the art which we call art is not important.
>
> ?!?!??? In other words, if art is not immediately accessible to "all
> people" then its unimportant. I would argue exactly the opposite. A "smiley
> face" is immediately accessible to everyone, ubiquitous, pleasant, perhaps
> beautiful to some, but definitely NOT art.
But is a smiley face emotionally accessible?
> An important artwork might be
> totally unappreciated by the public yet turn the entire world around. A
> good example would be "demoiselle d'Avignon" (god I hate using Picasso as
> an example, but everyone knows these works).. Picasso was afraid to exhibit
> it, and it sat hidden in his studio for several years after its completion.
> It was secretly shown only to a few of his artist friends, who immediately
> understood its importance and it affected their work. "demoiselle" is all
> the things that Tolstoy hates, salacious, depressing, ugly, blasphemous,
> unrefined, etc etc but it changed the entirety of Art History.
Tolstoy would say that it changed Art History for the worse. I would agree with that
view.
> > "This dilemma is insoluble, and therefore intelligent but immoral people
> > boldly resolve it by denying one side of it - namely, the right of the popular
> masses
> > to benefit from art.
>
> It seems to me, it is far more immoral to censor artists like Maplethorpe
> and Serrano who clearly offend the "popular masses" sensibility.
Tolstoy never (to my knowledge) condoned censorship of art.
> The "popular masses" generally like crap. That has no effect on me, I never
> think about the hoi polloi when I'm painting, I think about other painters.
Why? Why should one think of anyone else? If modern art needs to be understood only
by ONE person - or no-one - then why should an artist feel compelled to create work
that titillates the tastes of his peers?
> > ..These people give direct utterance to what lies at the
> > heart of the matter, which is that only the schöne Geister, the elect, as the
> > romantics called them, or the 'supermen', as they have been called by
> > Nietzsche's followers, can partake of and benefit from the supremely beautiful
> > (in their understanding) - that is, the loftiest pleasure of art. The
> > rest, the crude herd, unable to experience these pleasures, must serve the lofty
>
> > pleasures of this higher race of men. Those who voice such views at least do not
> pretend
> > and do not want to combine the uncombinable, but admit directly what
> > happens to be the case - namely, that our is the art of the upper classes only
> ...
>
> I will remind people that the "ubermensch" that Tolstoy is thinking of is
> the Russian Aristocracy, who lived in gilded mansions full of expensive
> paintings, while the vast majority of Russia starved to death. No doubt, he
> was correct to condemn this abuse. But today, art is accessible to everyone
> that wants it. There ARE supermen, those artists at the pinnacle of the art
> world. And they are knocked down by the next one to come along. There IS an
> upper class in the art world. This doesn't make the minor artists any less
> important, but someone has to "take the point" in any advancement.
You claim that there are supermen in art - do you also believe that they are a
"higher race" who should create art only for each other?
> > "Not to mention the moral consequences for European society of this singling
> > out from the whole area of art and bestowing importance upon an art not
> > deserving of such evaluation, this perversion of art weakened art itself and
> > drove it almost to ruin.
>
> Again, Tolstoy rants against those "snobs" who snub the "people's art" and
> I haven't got a clue what he's talking about.
He is referring to the vulgarization of art.
> > ..The first consequence was that art lost the infinitely
> > diverse and profound religious content proper to it.
>
> This assumes that religious content is the only proper content for art.
> Maybe the Pope still believes this, but nobody else does.
Not even Buddhists? Or Muslims?
> > ..The second consequence was
> > that, having only a small circle of people in mind, it lost beauty of form,
> > became fanciful and unclear; and the firth and chief consequence was that it
> > ceased to be sincere and became artificial and cerebral."
>
> It should be unnecessary for me to poke holes in this statement, the flaws
> are so obvious. Many art movements have been targeted at a group of
> "literati" and have become more focused and powerful for that focus.
But did their form increase in beauty? And did it become "more focused and powerful"
for groups other than the one for which the art was created?
> > "When an artist of the whole people - such as Greek artists or the Jewish
> > prophets once were - created his works, he naturally strove to say what he had
> > to say in such a fashion that his work would be understood by all people.
>
> Because in those days, modes of communication were much more primitive.
You believe Greek art to be primitive?
An interesting example, Charles.
> > "Thus, among the new poets, obscurity is made a dogma ... but it is not only
> > French writers who think this way. The poets of all other nationalities think
> > and act in the same way: Germans, Scandinavians, Italians, Russians and
> > Englishmen; all modern artists in all branches of art think in the same
> > way; in painting, in sculpture, and in music. Guided by Nietzsche and Wagner,
> > artists of modern times think that there is no need for them to be understood by
> the
> > crude masses, that it is enough for them to evoke poetic states in 'the best
> > nurtured men', to use the expression of one English aesthetician."
>
> And what is wrong with ignoring the masses? Did Einstein care that only 5
> or 6 men on earth understood the implications of E=mc^2? He changed the
> world because at least ONE person recognized its importance.
Perhaps the artists and (avant-garde) composers of our time are indeed guided by the
philosophies of Nietzsche and Wagner, after all.
> > "As soon as the art of the upper classes became separate from the art of the
> > whole people, there arose the conviction that art can be art and yet be
> > incomprehensible to the masses. As soon as this thesis was allowed, it
> > inevitably became necessary to allow that art may be comprehensible only to a
> > small number of the elect, and, finally, only for two, or one - a best friend,
> > one's own self. This is what modern artists say straight out: 'I create and I
> > understand myself; if others do not understand me, so much the worse for
> > them.' "The assertion that art can be good art and yet be incomprehensible is
> so
> > wrong, its consequences are so pernicious for art, and it is at the same
> > time so widespread, so embedded in our notions, that no explanation of its utter
>
> > incongruity can suffice.
>
> I totally disagree. Tolstoy assumes that an artist has a clear message and
> a clear motivation for creating a work. Sometimes there IS no clear
> purpose, artwork is a process of exploration, not a finished product
> hanging on a gallery wall.
Experiments should be confined to the laboratory - not hung in a museum. The artist
- as a professional - has a responsibility to himself not to promote experimental
"art". By the time the art-work is completed, it is hardly an experiment - it is a
conclusion. "Experimental art" is unfinished art.
> > "Nothing is more common than to hear said of alleged works of art that
> > they are very good but very difficult to understand. We are used to the
> assertion, and
> > yet to say that a work of art is good but incomprehensible is the same as
> > saying of some kind of food that it is very good but people cannot eat it.
> People may
> > not like rotten cheese, putrid grouse and other such dishes appreciated by
> > gastronomes with perverted taste, but bread and fruit are only good when
> > people like them.
>
> Or maybe it might also be good when Fleming discovers penicillin mold
> growing on a spoiled fruit. Another elitist...
Tolstoy is talking about art, not science.
> > "It is said that the best works of art are such that they cannot be
> > understood by the majority and are accessible only to the elect, who are
> prepared to
> > understand these great works. But if the majority do not understand, they must
> > be given an explanation, the knowledge necessary for understanding.
>
> And of course, new knowledge is a bad thing, right?
Do you deny that modern art is "accessible only to the elect"? Or that it should be?
> > ..But it turns
> > out that this knowledge does not exist, that the works cannot be
> > explained, and therefore those who say that the majority do not understand good
> works of art
> > give no explanations, but say that in order to understand one must read, look
> > at, or listen to the same work over and over again. But this is not to
> > explain, it is to make accustomed. And one can get accustomed to anything, even
> the
> > worst. As it is possible to get people accustomed to rotten food, vodka,
> > tobacco, opium, so it is possible to get them accustomed to bad art,
> > which is in fact being done ...
>
> One can even become accustomed to bad aesthetic theory, i.e. "good art must
> be accessible to everyone."
The opposite of that theory is, perhaps, much worse.
> > "Great works of art are great only because they are accessible and
> > comprehensible to everyone ...
> > "And therefore, if art does not move us, one must not say that the cause
> > is the spectator's or listener's incomprehension, but one can and must conclude
> > that it is either bad art or not art at all.
>
> And here, Tolstoy is condemning the art world to mediocrity, if it follows
> his rules. For a further exploration of this concept, I recommend a short
> story by Kurt Vonnegut called "Harrison Bergeron." For those who might
> condemn me as an elitist, I will note that this story was also made into a
> movie, so even the illiterate can experience it.
I have read the story. It is not elitist to make art for the literate - anyone can
learn to read given the opportunity, and books can be recorded onto cassettes or
compact discs if necessary.
> In the society depicted in
> this story, exceptionally talented people are given handicaps, for example,
> an exceptional ballerina is forced to wear lead weights during her
> performances, so as to not outshine the less-talented dancers. I will not
> reveal the ending, but suffice to say that it has always been the goal of
> talented people to rise above the mediocrity of mass taste.
I fail to see the analogy between this story and your argument against Tolstoy.
Please elaborate.
I rest my case. Thank you, Charles.
> > "The business of art consists precisely in making understandable and
> > accessible that which might be incomprehensible and inaccessible in the form of
> > reasoning. Usually, when a person receives a truly artistic impression, it seems
> to him
> > that he knew it all along, only he was unable to express it ...
>
> And perhaps the artist also is unable to fully form his thought, and it
> receives incomplete expression in his work. Its all about process, not
> results.
Is it? Prove it. Why is the process more important than the result?
> > "A man of the people reads a book, looks at a painting, listens to a
> > drama of a symphony, and feels nothing. He is told that that is because he does
> not know
> > how to understand it. They promise to show a man a certain spectavle - he
> > comes in and sees nothing. He is told that that is because his sight has not
> been
> > prepared for this spectacle. But the man know that he can see everything
> > perfectly well. And if he does not see what they promised to show him, he
> > merely concludes (quite correctly) that those who undertook to show him the
> spectacle
> > did not fulfil their undertaking.
>
> Let me cite a perfect example. I was at a major show of Barnett Newman, and
> one room was filled with dozens of his "black paintings." They were all
> quite nice and subtly different, despite being essentially black canvases.
> As I sat and studied several of these paintings, I lost count of all the
> people who came into the room, looked briefly at the paintings and
> dismissed them as all identical after only a few seconds. However, anyone
> who knows about these paintings knows they are intended to be viewed
> slowly, for a prolonged period, whereupon the subtle color variations
> become obvious, and afterimage effects make the colors positively glow.
> These paintings are founded on principles that even Tolstoy would approve,
> they are based on physiological and psychological apparatus in the eye and
> brain of the viewer, any human being could experience what Newman intended.
"One can become accustomed to anything ... even bad art".
> As I sat there for a few minutes, looking at one painting, I was
> approached by one curious elderly gentleman. He asked me what was there in
> this black painting that was worth looking at for so long. I merely told
> him to sit down and look at one for about 3 minutes, and then tell ME what
> it was all about. He sat down, and gradually, I could see a smile break
> out, he recognized what was IN the painting. Suddenly he knew what Newman's
> paintings were all about.
"One can become accustomed to anything ... even bad art".
> For those people who gave the painting 4 seconds of viewing, they failed to
> even experience the painting at all. This is not the fault of the artist,
> he clearly told everyone how the paintings were intended to be viewed. It
> is not a huge burden to ask a viewer to spend 3 minutes instead of 3
> seconds. Is the viewer's incomprehension due to his own haste, or is it the
> artist's failure to convey his message due to an "unreasonable" expectation
> that the viewer would take in the work slowly?
The unreasonable expectation is in asking the viewer to make sense of nonsense.
> > ..In the same way, and quite correctly, a man of
> > the people draws conclusions about the works of art of our society, which
> > do not call up any feelings in him. And therefore, to say that a man is not
> > moved by my art because he is still very stupid, which is both presumptuous and
> very
> > brazen, is to pervert the roles and shift the blame from the sick head to the
> > sound ... "But the main thing is that, once we allow that art can be art while
> being
> > incomprehensible to certain people of sound mind, there is then no reason why
> > some circle of perverted people should not create works that titillate their
> > perverted feelings and are incomprehensible to anyone except themselves, and
> > call these works art, which in fact is now being done by the so-called
> > decadents.
>
> I find it wholly fitting that this argument is coming from an elite,
> privleged writer like Tolstoy. I think he's obliquely criticizing other
> less-privleged, "degenerate" Russian authors (his competition). Such an
> ego!
At a stage in his life Tolstoy gave up riches and worked as a peasant for about
twenty years. Elitist?
> > "The course art has been taking may be likened to placing on a circle of
> > diameter circles of smaller and smaller diameters, thus forming a cone the tip
> > of which ceases to be a circle at all. This very thing has happened with
> > the art of our time."
>
> And so it always will be. Art is full of techniques and tricks, some of
> which must be concealed from the public just as a magician never reveals
> his secrets or the illusion would be spoiled. Some call this elitism but I
> prefer to think of it as merely specialization. There have always been
> criticisms of the "Elite" in art, and many have been more precise and well
> well concieved than this lame screed by a religious fanatic. I will close
> merely with a statement from one of my art instructors, who is a terrible
> painter, and a terrible idiot but he did say ONE intelligent thing:
> "Everyone accuses modern artists of being elitists, so I finally decided to
> look it up in the dictionary. It said Elitism is when one accumulates
> special knowledge and keeps it for one's exclusive use. Hell, I'm no
> elitist, if anyone asks me, I'll tell them everything I know, and talk
> their ear off!"
The technical skills that are needed to create art art not elitist - anyone who is
interested (and who has some natural talent) can acquire them with enough
practice/schooling.
Art can be elitist, however.
> > This is all I have time to quote at present. More may follow in the
> > future.
>
> I sure hope not. Either you're selecting really bad texts, or your excerpts
> are really bad, but in the end, this is just really BAD aesthetic theory. I
> wouldn't normally go to such lengths to debunk such a ridiculous piece of
> crap, but due to its famous writer, people might be inclined to believe it.
You sound a little worried, Charles. I wonder why.
Regards,
Iian Neill.
Iian Neill
Charles Eicher
<s36...@student.uq.edu.au> wrote:
I am not able at this time to reply at length to your message, for
technical reasons. It would be nice if you would learn how to use your
newsreader correctly, and format in the Usenet standard of 72 columns, so
that replies don't wrap all over the screen. In its current state, any
reply I make will be so garbled and remote from its original context that
it would be useless to reply point by point. So for now, I will merely
reply to a single point:
> > I find it wholly fitting that this argument is coming from an elite,
> > privleged writer like Tolstoy. I think he's obliquely criticizing other
> > less-privleged, "degenerate" Russian authors (his competition). Such an
> > ego!
>
> At a stage in his life Tolstoy gave up riches and worked as a peasant for
> about
> twenty years. Elitist?
Exactly. Today, this is known as "spiritual materialism." It refers to a
person who thinks himself more spiritual than others, and accumulates and
displays symbols of that spiritualism just as a materialistic person might
acquire expensive antiques, cars, real estate, jewelry, etc.. It is even
more insidious than plain-old materialism. To give up one's "riches" and
devote oneself to an aescetic practice (i.e. working as a peasant) is the
ultimate in spiritual materialism, if one approaches it in the manner of
Tolstoy.
Lawrence
I have a copy of this book by Tolstoy.....and have it quite marked up. I
thought it interesting that he insisted that Beethoven and ballet were two
examples of what was not art.
Beethoven was too complicated, too much going on and disrupted unity. Yet,
for many of today's generation responding to buttons, computer games,
instant response, much classical music would be considered trite and
boring.
He also thought it very disturbing that dancers would put their legs and
feet unnaturally above their heads.
While I find many of his views interesting ones, that he would rule so much
of what we might consider high art today out, would pit him almost as a
religious legalist as concerns art. I tend to agree with some things he
said about that which was and is a detriment to art.....however, I wouldn't
wish to see much of what so many of us enjoy today taken away because he
thought it unsuitable or leading toward disunity.
In fact.....he certainly would have a problem with the many art histories
that today because of pluralism must needs be considered. In fact, if a
unity exists today it would be one that favors diversity with tolerance.
No doubt a strange twist for Tolstoy!
Larry
my art web site at- http://cwinc.net/larryseiler
"Art attacks may skill!"
Pascale Camus-Walter
I have been reading with a great interest the quotes of Tolstoy and the
replies to this subject.
I just wanted to situate the theory of Tolstoy in the context of Russian art.
As you know, the problem of a comprehensible art was for a long time the
heart of the debate of Russian aesthetic.With Gorky an Stalin, the dogma
of socialist realism became official in 1934 . This dogma is rooted in
Tosltoy's aesthetic of an art understandable by masses, which was also the
aesthetic reference of Lenin. Gorki formalized from 1896, against the modern
painter Vrubel, this principle:
“ ..it is not the artists, but the public which needs art, one should
give to the public the pictures that it could understand. ”
From 1890, Vrubel felt the risk for art to be subjugated to the masses:
"The artist must not become the slave of the public.He is himself the
best judge of his works that he has to respect and not reduce to a
advertising slogan."
The artistic movement of the Wanderers (Peredvijniky -1863-1923)
concretized this theory. Opposed to the german academic and mythological
art, they followed the motto of Tchernychevsky: "Reality is more
beautiful than its representation in art".This painting is difficult to grasp
outside of the russian context. It is a relatively isolated phenomenon amongst
the artistic movements of
Europe at that time. After a period of anti-academism in the 60's, and a new
form of painting as reportage, it leaded to a nationalist realist
comprehension of art in the 90's with the come back into the academy made by
the tsar Alexander III.
After the sovietic revolution, the politics of arts initiated by Lunacharsky
and Sterenberg tryed to give to the people a better education and created
schools and museums of modern art in the whole country with programs made by
Kandinsky. Malevich made lectures explaining modern art and fighting against
this idea that art must be comprehensible for people. He said that people had
to make an effort to grasp new art because it is non-objective and non-aesthetic.
Concerning the link of art with religion, you must know that in Russia, during
centuries, all cultural and artistic life was entirely dominated by orthodox
religion which is highly ideological. So, you must not understand the concept
or religion like the catholic or protestant in western Europe, because in
russia, there was no Renaissance and even no scholastic in the Middle Age.
Never forget that, at the time where Europe had experienced perspective and
discovered the antiques since three centuries, at the end of the 17th century,
the russian court owned only 58 (fifty eight !) books including 41 manuscript,
essentially religious books.
Russian history (including art history) is not in a continuum like other
histories, because russia had to suffer a lot from censorship (the religion,
the tsars, and after that, the communism).
So, I think you cannot just take some sentences or a thought and apply it in
general to art without knowing the fate of this thought in its own country.
Believe me, art for masses is something problematic and not without danger as
russian art history has shown. Many artists have been physically victims of
this terrible system.
Pascale Camus-Walter / Strasbourg • cam...@cybercable.tm.fr
It's more easy to scratch darkness than light. R. Juarroz
Il est plus facile de rayer l'obscurite que la lumiere. R. Juarroz
+---------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
artKfee: http://www.cybercable.tm.fr/~camwal/
The Waltercolour studio: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/5806/
apastras: http://web.superb.net/apastras
+------------------------------------+----------------------------------+
Iian Neill
> > about twenty years. Elitist?
>
> person who thinks himself more spiritual than others, and accumulates and
> displays symbols of that spiritualism just as a materialistic person might
> acquire expensive antiques, cars, real estate, jewelry, etc.. It is even
> more insidious than plain-old materialism. To give up one's "riches" and
> devote oneself to an aescetic practice (i.e. working as a peasant) is the
> ultimate in spiritual materialism, if one approaches it in the manner of
> Tolstoy.
You will have to pardon my ignorance on this point, but did not Buddha also
give up riches and an aristocratic life-style to pursue a path of spiritual
enlightenment? For seven years he thought it involved starving himself
according to an ascetic practice - was this the ultimate in spiritual
materialism? And if not, why not?
Regards,
Iian Neill
>
>
> ----------------
> Charles Eicher
> cei...@inav.net
> ----------------
--
G*rd*n
| > > about twenty years. Elitist?
| > Exactly. Today, this is known as "spiritual materialism." It refers to a
| > person who thinks himself more spiritual than others, and accumulates and
| > displays symbols of that spiritualism just as a materialistic person might
| > acquire expensive antiques, cars, real estate, jewelry, etc.. It is even
| > more insidious than plain-old materialism. To give up one's "riches" and
| > devote oneself to an aescetic practice (i.e. working as a peasant) is the
| > ultimate in spiritual materialism, if one approaches it in the manner of
| > Tolstoy.
Iian Neill <s36...@student.uq.edu.au>:
| You will have to pardon my ignorance on this point, but did not Buddha also
| give up riches and an aristocratic life-style to pursue a path of spiritual
| enlightenment? For seven years he thought it involved starving himself
| according to an ascetic practice - was this the ultimate in spiritual
| materialism? And if not, why not?
I don't know about Gautama personally, but the Buddhist
literature I have read considers "attachment to non-
attachment" to be a serious problem. I think they're
talking about the same thing -- taking one's supposed
spiritual accomplishments to be a possession or the
score of a game.
In the scheme of things in which Tolstoy apparently
believed, it would have made more sense for him to accept
the difficult fate of being a rich person, an aristocrat,
and an intellectual and do the best that he could with it.
Pretending to be a peasant or a poor person was mummery;
he had not been given the privilege of being one in truth.
The notion that art must be simplified and brought down for
the benefit of "the people" is a particularly noxious and
contemptuous attitude. People doing actual popular art, as
anyone can see from considering punk rock, hip-hop, or
contemporary commercial art, often take the risks of being
difficult, provocative, or complex.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
{ http://www.etaoin.com | latest new material 11/5 <-adv't
Iian Neill
> | give up riches and an aristocratic life-style to pursue a path of spiritual
> | enlightenment? For seven years he thought it involved starving himself
> | according to an ascetic practice - was this the ultimate in spiritual
> | materialism? And if not, why not?
>
> I don't know about Gautama personally, but the Buddhist
> literature I have read considers "attachment to non-
> attachment" to be a serious problem. I think they're
> talking about the same thing -- taking one's supposed
> spiritual accomplishments to be a possession or the
> score of a game.
There seems to be a very real danger there - I just wasn't sure whether Tolstoy had
succumbed to self-delusion, or whether he had really "given up his riches" because
of a true spiritual impulse. I am still not sure yet.
> In the scheme of things in which Tolstoy apparently
> believed, it would have made more sense for him to accept
> the difficult fate of being a rich person, an aristocrat,
> and an intellectual and do the best that he could with it.
> Pretending to be a peasant or a poor person was mummery;
> he had not been given the privilege of being one in truth.
That seems logical enough to me.
> The notion that art must be simplified and brought down for
> the benefit of "the people" is a particularly noxious and
> contemptuous attitude. People doing actual popular art, as
> anyone can see from considering punk rock, hip-hop, or
> contemporary commercial art, often take the risks of being
> difficult, provocative, or complex.
I agree with what you are saying here - but at the same time I see some value in
the kind of universality that Tolstoy is hinting at. Art that is made to be
deliberately popular is just as elevating as stories that are bowdlerized for young
children - the intelligence of the group in question is belittled by the assumption
that it can't understand more complex concepts. However, there is a very real
danger of withdrawing into oneself, and this is what I think Tolstoy was worried
about. Tailoring art for the public is noxious, I would agree - but restricting the
enjoyment of art only to a few 'professionials' is just as bad.
Instead of saying that art should be made for "the masses", it may perhaps make
more sense to say that art should be made "for Man". Not for a particular person,
or even a group, but for those elements in us that are common to men and women all
over the globe. The stories of Buddha, Christ, Gandhi and so forth can move anyone
when translated into relevant languages - the idea here is to strive for an art
that speaks to Humanity itself. Not to an elite, or the public, or the artist's
best friend and his dog - but to that thing within all of us that makes us human,
which distinguishes from animal-kind or insensate matter.
It may be that Tolstoy did not mean this at all when he spoke of "the masses";
but it seems to me that he so often refered to them to illustrate a point - being
that the path art was taking was leading ever towards reclusiveness, recessiveness
and incomprehensibility. Tolstoy considered feelings to be more important than
"Beauty", but not just any feelings - he emphasized feelings of good will, of
brotherhood, charity, etc. It seems fair enough to me that he would value such
things, as they are fairly typical values espoused by his philosophy.
Modern critics may find these things to be out of date in our age of computers
and atomic missiles - espousing brotherhood may perhaps be a pernicious deception;
nevertheless, what Tolstoy and the Post-Modernists and every group in history
preceding them all shared was this one trait: they judged as being art that which
their own philosophies considered important. This is why certain Modernists
despised the paintings of Gerome, Meissonier, or the music of Nikolai Medtner -
they were opposed to them because the values inherent in these works were
antithetical to their own philosophies.
What these values were, and what this says about their philosophies, I will leave
to the imagination.
Regards,
Iian Neill.
Charles Eicher
<s36...@student.uq.edu.au> wrote:
> > > At a stage in his life Tolstoy gave up riches and worked as a peasant for
> > > about twenty years. Elitist?
> >
> > Exactly. Today, this is known as "spiritual materialism." It refers to a
> > person who thinks himself more spiritual than others, and accumulates and
> > displays symbols of that spiritualism just as a materialistic person might
> > acquire expensive antiques, cars, real estate, jewelry, etc.. It is even
> > more insidious than plain-old materialism. To give up one's "riches" and
> > devote oneself to an aescetic practice (i.e. working as a peasant) is the
> > ultimate in spiritual materialism, if one approaches it in the manner of
> > Tolstoy.
>
> You will have to pardon my ignorance on this point, but did not Buddha also
> give up riches and an aristocratic life-style to pursue a path of spiritual
> enlightenment? For seven years he thought it involved starving himself
> according to an ascetic practice - was this the ultimate in spiritual
> materialism? And if not, why not?
No. The historical figure known as Buddha was a prince, and led a sheltered
life, never knowing suffering. When he accidentally discovered there was
suffering in this world he renounced his position, and determined to
discover why.
Yes, buddha did some ascetic practices. In the later sutras (lotus, diamond
sutras) it is explained that buddha discovered they did not work, and did
not lead people to enlightenment, but to a false state that is easily
mistaken for enlightenment.
Iian Neill
> I have a copy of this book by Tolstoy.....and have it quite marked up. I
> thought it interesting that he insisted that Beethoven and ballet were two
> examples of what was not art.
Thank you for bringing up a few of the important points that I omitted in my
original post to the group. The reason I left these out was mainly because I
have serious problems with Tolstoy's stance here - many of the points that I
quoted, however, were ones that I felt able to defend to some degree - to try
and take elements from them that I thought were insightful and might open up
new avenues for Aesthetics. In brief: Yes, I certainly do have problems with
Tolstoy's essay, but I think that his general approach has great merit, even if
its final form was less than desirable in parts.
I would like to respond to your letter in more detail at the moment, but I have
a test tomorrow and must prepare. If you're still interested in the topic of
Tolstoy's aesthetics, I'll be happy to bounce the ball around with you a bit
later.
urena
art, because art is not to be understood. Art is not
an intellectual activity. It is not a reasonable
matter. Art is an activity of the senses. Therefore it
is sensual, not intellectual. Do you "understand" an
apple or a perfume or a sunset? You simple experience
those things with your senses. A painting is a visual
experience exactly as drinking a cup of coffe is, for
some e delightful one.
Please, enjoy some of my paintings at
www.latinartmuseum.com
or write me back at
ur...@bellsouth.net
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