(Originally Written Mar. 2, 2008 in the Journal)
When a person creates art for all mankind then he strives to make it intelligible to all men, but when one is hired by a single person he strives only to make it intelligible to that man. The latter is enormously easier and by doing so makes the piece either obscure or utterly incomprehensible to outsiders; and thus, is not art. This practice has become so rampant that cloudiness, obscurity and indefiniteness of expression have actually become esteemend.
Baudelaire banished eloquence, passion and truth from poetry. Mallarmé said that the charm of poetry is that one must guess its meaning.
The artist of this age relies on the teachings of Wagner and Nietzsche claiming they need not make their work comprehensible to the vulgar.
Baudelaire transmits feelings that are evil and base. He purposefully shrouds them in obscurity. Even if one works to comprehend the meaning, one is not rewarded, but perverted by the work. Verlaine, when he decides to actually make his work comprehensible produces works that are bade in both form and content. Both Baudelaire and Verlaine lacked sincerity and simplicity but possessed, abundantly so, artificiality, forced originality and self-assurance. How these two became leading artists shows how art had ceased to be important in their society and how art sunk to mere amusement.
The subject matter of this 'high art' has become severely limited so they invent new, poor forms to mold their subject matter.
Mallarmé and Maeterlinck produced poetry with absolutely no meaning and it is probably this utter meaninglessness that led them to being published. "To avoid the reproach of having selected the worst verses, I have copied out of each volume whatever poem happened to stand on page twenty-eight" (Maude, 169). That's funny!!
Millions and millions of working hours have been spent on the production of these unintelligible works of high art in turning them into books and plays, etc.
Painting far surpasses writing in its obscurity, especially of the Symbolists, Impressionists, and Neo-Impressionists. Drama has likewise become obscure and meaningless. In the music today, all a aman can do in transmitting his feelings can transmit the weariness of his incomprehensible song. Novels are too absolutely unintelligible in both form and substance.
Some problems with judging art in Tolstoy's way: If I have a right to say that the masses do not understand my art it is because they are underdeveloped then those who fancy the new art have the right to say I do not understand their art because I am underdeveloped. If I have the right to say that me and my cronies can say that the new art is bad because it says nothing then the masses who do not understand my art (and are more mass then my crowd) can call my art bad because it says nothing to them.
Tolstoy states that as a man of the early part of the century does not have the authority or right to say that the new art is bad, but only that it is incomprehensible. The consolation that Tolstoy then has is that what he considers to be art is incomprehensible to far fewer than the new art is. The only conclusion that then can be made is that as art becomes more and more exclusive it becomes more and more incomprehensible to an ever increasing number of people
Art has been subjected to this situation that eventually only the producer will understand his production gand then he will say I understand my art and all who don't are worse because of their incomprehension...
Any assertion that states art can be good and yet incomprehensible to large swathes of the masses is completely unjust, "Perverted art may not please the majority of men, but good art always pleases everyone" (Maude, 176).
Some men claim that art that is difficult to understand is good art and can be understood by all by viewing that same incomprehensible art over and over again. In reality though this does not educate anyone. It only habituates them to it. One can often habituate themselves to many bad things: bad food, alcohol, tobacco and opium. The same is true with art; one can habituate themselves to bad art.
The difference between art and speech is that there are no language barriers. I do not need to know a specific language to understand why a piece is a great piece of artwork. "Great works of art are only great because they are accessible and comprehensible to everyone" (Maude, 177).
If something does not move many people it is not because these people lack understanding but that thing is either bad art, or not art at all.
Art is differentiated from all other mental activities in that there is no prerequisite knowledge necessary. Art infects the observer, whatever his place of development is.
Now, good art may be incomprehensible to some people but that is because those individuals have been perverted and are destitute of all religion. (Religion is man's relation to God.)
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