Notes on Tolstoy, What is Art? Ch. 5

(Originally Written Feb. 29, 2008 in the Journal).

What is Art?
Leo Tolstoy

Chapter 5

If we push aside the concept of beauty as the foundation of art then what becomes of the definition of art?

Charles Darwin, Schiller, & Spencer: Art is an activity arising in the animal kingdom and springs from sexual desires and the propensity to play.

Grant Allen: Art is an activity accompanied by pleasurable excitement in the nervous system.

Véron: Art is the external manifestation of man's emotions by lines, colors, shapes, etc.

Sully: Art is the production of something which supplies the producer with pleasure and conveys a pleasurable impression to spectators apart from advantage.

While these definitions do alleviate the problems of the metaphysical definitions, they are far from exact.

Darwin/Schiller/Spencer theories do not portray artistic activity, they merely focus on the origin of such activities. Allen's theory is inexact because many other human activities cannot be excluded by this definition. Véron's theory is inexact because a man can express his emotions in this way yet fail to manifest them on others. Sully's theory is in exact because it can include other things that are not art, i.e. gymnastics or magic (or reality TV). Also, poems that are gloomy in nature or stories which are sad may not produce pleasurable feelings in producer or audience and may yet be art.

The inaccuracy of these theories and of the metaphysical theories stem from the fact they consider what pleasure the object may give and not the purpose it may serve to humanity.

To define art we must cease to consider it as a means to pleasure and consider it as a condition of human life. "Viewing it in this way we cannot fail to observe that art is one of the means of intercourse between man and man" (Maude, 120). "Every work of art causes the receiver to enter into a certain kind of relationship both with him who produced or is producing the art, and with all those who, simultaneously, previously. or subsequently, receive the same artistic impression" (Maude, 120).

Art servers a similar function to speech. By words man transmits his thoughts; by art man transmits his feelings. The artist infects others with his own personal feelings in art. "To evoke in oneself a feeling one has experienced and having evoked it in oneself then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art. Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through and that others are infected by these feelings and also experience them" (Maude, 123).

Art is not the manifestation of some idea or God (metaphysical theory). Art is not a game or play (physiological theory). Art is not the expression of man's emotion by external signs. Art is not pleasure. Art is a means of union among men and is indispensable for life and the progress of mankind.

By art man can experience all feelings of all men and transmit his feelings so that all men can experience them. If men lacked the capacity to experience other's feelings, man would be savage and hostile - even more so than he already is.

Art permeates all of man's life, just as speech is not only found in orations, books and sermons, but in every day activity.

What we widely consider art, that which is displayed as such, is merely a small portion of art.

People who repudiate all art art wrong, but no more wrong then those who allow all art so long as it brings pleasure. In fact, those who allow art simply because it is pleasurable do more harm to humanity than those who disallow art because of its infectious nature.