Notes on Tolstoy, Schoolboys and Art (1860)

(Originally Written Feb. 18, 2008 in the Journal)

What is Art? And Essays on Art
Leo Tolstoy
Translated by Aylmer Maude
Hesperides Books, NY 1962

Introduction

How books should be read:

"To understand any book one must choose out the parts that are quite clear, dividing them from what is obscure or confused, and from what is clear we must form our idea of the drift and spirit of the work" (Maude, viii). Basically, this means we must first understand what is clear and intelligible and then once we have done that we can use this understanding to comprehend what is confused or obscure.

What may be comprehensible to some may be confusing to others.

What is comprehensible to all me is the essence of the book.

Art (my thesis!): "an activity by means of which one man, having experienced a feeling, intentionally transmits it to others" (Maude, viii).

Schools can teach a person to create something that can resemble art, but only when a person creates from his feelings can art be achieved.

Unless form is met, no art can be created.

Art shapes, forms, and develops a man's feelings. That is why it is so important.

Art is judged on its form and its power to transmit feelings.

Part I Schoolboys and art (1860)

Not everything that exists, exists for use. There is also beauty and art is beauty.

Each boy understood the difference between utility and beauty differently, but they all knew there was a difference.