WHAT IS ART?
WHAT IS ART?
BY
LEO TOLSTOY
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL MS.,
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
AYLMER MAUDE
NEW YORK
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
1904
Introduction
What thoughtful man has not been perplexed by problems relating to art?
An estimable and charming Russian lady I knew, felt the charm of the
music and ritual of the services of the Russo-Greek Church so strongly
that she wished the peasants, in whom she was interested, to retain
their blind faith, though she herself disbelieved the church doctrines.
“Their lives are so poor and bare—they have so little art, so little
poetry and colour in their lives—let them at least enjoy what they have;
it would be cruel to undeceive them,” said she.
A false and antiquated view of life is supported by means of art, and is
inseparably linked to some manifestations of art which we enjoy and
prize. If the false view of life be destroyed this art will cease to
appear valuable. Is it best to screen the error for the sake of
preserving the art? Or should the art be sacrificed for the sake of
truthfulness?
Again and again in history a dominant church has utilised art to
maintain its sway over men. Reformers (early Christians, Mohammedans,
Puritans, and others) have perceived that art bound people to the old
faith, and they were angry with art. They diligently chipped the noses
from statues and images, and were wroth with ceremonies, decorations,
stained-glass windows, and processions. They were even ready to banish
art altogether, for, besides the superstitions it upheld, they saw that
it depraved and perverted men by dramas, drinking-songs, novels,
pictures, and dances, of a kind that awakened man’s lower nature. Yet
art always reasserted her sway, and to-day we are told by many that art
has nothing to do with morality—that “art should be followed for art’s
sake.”
I went one day, with a lady artist, to the Bodkin Art Gallery in Moscow.
In one of the rooms, on a table, lay a book of coloured pictures, issued
in Paris and supplied, I believe, to private subscribers only. The
pictures were admirably executed, but represented scenes in the private
cabinets of a restaurant. Sexual indulgence was the chief subject of
each picture. Women extravagantly dressed and partly undressed, women
exposing their legs and breasts to men in evening dress; men and women
taking liberties with each other, or dancing the “can-can,” etc., etc.
My companion the artist, a maiden lady of irreproachable conduct and
reputation, began deliberately to look at these pictures. I could not
let my attention dwell on them without ill effects. Such things had a
certain attraction for me, and tended to make me restless and nervous. I
ventured to suggest that the subject-matter of the pictures was
objectionable. But my companion (who prided herself on being an artist)
remarked with conscious superiority, that from an artist’s point of view
the _subject_ was of no consequence. The pictures being very well
executed were artistic, and therefore worthy of attention and study.
Morality had nothing to do with art.
Here again is a problem. One remembers Plato’s advice not to let our
thoughts run upon women, for if we do we shall think clearly about
nothing else, and one knows that to neglect this advice is to lose
tranquillity of mind; but then one does not wish to be considered
narrow, ascetic, or inartistic, nor to lose artistic pleasures which
those around us esteem so highly.
Again, the newspapers last year printed proposals to construct a Wagner
Opera House, to cost, if I recollect rightly, £100,000—about as much as
a hundred labourers may earn by fifteen or twenty years’ hard work. The
writers thought it would be a good thing if such an Opera House were
erected and endowed. But I had a talk lately with a man who, till his
health failed him, had worked as a builder in London. He told me that
when he was younger he had been very fond of theatre-going, but, later,
when he thought things over and considered that in almost every number
of his weekly paper he read of cases of people whose death was hastened
by lack of good food, he felt it was not right that so much labour
should be spent on theatres.
In reply to this view it is urged that food for the mind is as important
as food for the body. The labouring classes work to produce food and
necessaries for themselves and for the cultured, while some of the
cultured class produce plays and operas. It is a division of labour. But
this again invites the rejoinder that, sure enough, the labourers
produce food for themselves and also food that the cultured class accept
and consume, but that the artists seem too often to produce their
spiritual food for the cultured only—at any rate that a singularly small
share seems to reach the country labourers who work to supply the bodily
food! Even were the “division of labour” shown to be a fair one, the
“division of products” seems remarkably one-sided.
Once again: how is it that often when a new work is produced, neither
the critics, the artists, the publishers, nor the public, seem to know
whether it is valuable or worthless? Some of the most famous books in
English literature could hardly find a publisher, or were savagely
derided by leading critics; while other works once acclaimed as
masterpieces are now laughed at or utterly forgotten. A play which
nobody now reads was once passed off as a newly-discovered masterpiece
of Shakespear’s, and was produced at a leading London theatre. Are the
critics playing blind-man’s buff? Are they relying on each other? Is
each following his own whim and fancy? Or do they possess a criterion
which they never reveal to those outside the profession?
Such are a few of the many problems relating to art which present
themselves to us all, and it is the purpose of this book to enable us to
reach such a comprehension of art, and of the position art should occupy
in our lives, as will enable us to answer such questions.
The task is one of enormous difficulty. Under the cloak of “art,” so
much selfish amusement and self-indulgence tries to justify itself, and
so many mercenary interests are concerned in preventing the light from
shining in upon the subject, that the clamour raised by this book can
only be compared to that raised by the silversmiths of Ephesus when they
shouted, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” for about the space of two
hours.
Elaborate theories blocked the path with subtle sophistries or ponderous
pseudo-erudition. Merely to master these, and expose them, was by itself
a colossal labour, but necessary in order to clear the road for a
statement of any fresh view. To have accomplished this work of exposure
in a few chapters is a wonderful achievement. To have done it without
making the book intolerably dry is more wonderful still. In Chapter III.
(where a rapid summary of some sixty æsthetic writers is given) even
Tolstoy’s powers fail to make the subject interesting, except to the
specialist, and he has to plead with his readers “not to be overcome by
dulness, but to read these extracts through.”
Among the writers mentioned, English readers miss the names of John
Ruskin and William Morris, especially as so much that Tolstoy says, is
in accord with their views.
Of Ruskin, Tolstoy has a very high opinion. I have heard him say, “I
don’t know why you English make such a fuss about Gladstone—you have a
much greater man in Ruskin.” As a stylist, too, Tolstoy speaks of him
with high commendation. Ruskin, however, though he has written on art
with profound insight, and has said many things with which Tolstoy fully
agrees, has, I think, nowhere so systematised and summarised his view
that it can be readily quoted in the concise way which has enabled
Tolstoy to indicate his points of essential agreement with Home, Véron,
and Kant. Even the attempt to summarise Kant’s æsthetic philosophy in a
dozen lines will hardly be of much service except to readers who have
already some acquaintance with the subject. For those to whom the
difference between “subjective” and “objective” perceptions is fresh, a
dozen pages would be none too much. And to summarise Ruskin would be
perhaps more difficult than to condense Kant.
As to William Morris, we are reminded of his dictum that art is the
workman’s expression of joy in his work, by Tolstoy’s “As soon as the
author is not producing art for his own satisfaction,—does not himself
feel what he wishes to express,—a resistance immediately springs up” (p.
154); and again, “In such transmission to others of the feelings that
have arisen in him, he (the artist) will find his happiness” (p. 195).
Tolstoy sweeps over a far wider range of thought, but he and Morris are
not opposed. Morris was emphasising part of what Tolstoy is implying.
But to return to the difficulties of Tolstoy’s task. There is one, not
yet mentioned, lurking in the hearts of most of us. We have enjoyed
works of “art.” We have been interested by the information conveyed in a
novel, or we have been thrilled by an unexpected “effect”; have admired
the exactitude with which real life has been reproduced, or have had our
feelings touched by allusions to, or reproductions of, works—old German
legends, Greek myths, or Hebrew poetry—which moved us long ago, as they
moved generations before us. And we thought all this was “art.” Not
clearly understanding what art is, and wherein its importance lies, we
were not only attached to these things, but attributed importance to
them, calling them “artistic” and “beautiful,” without well knowing what
we meant by those words.
But here is a book that obliges us to clear our minds. It challenges us
to define “art” and “beauty,” and to say why we consider these things,
that pleased us, to be specially important. And as to beauty, we find
that the definition given by æsthetic writers amounts merely to this,
that “Beauty is a kind of pleasure received by us, not having personal
advantage for its object.” But it follows from this, that “beauty” is a
matter of taste, differing among different people, and to attach special
importance to what pleases _me_ (and others who have had the same sort
of training that I have had) is merely to repeat the old, old mistake
which so divides human society; it is like declaring that my race is the
best race, my nation the best nation, my church the best church, and my
family the “best” family. It indicates ignorance and selfishness.
But “truth angers those whom it does not convince;”—people do not wish
to understand these things. It seems, at first, as though Tolstoy were
obliging us to sacrifice something valuable. We do not realise that we
are being helped to select the best art, but we do feel that we are
being deprived of our sense of satisfaction in Rudyard Kipling.
Both the magnitude and the difficulty of the task were therefore very
great, but they have been surmounted in a marvellous manner. Of the
effect this book has had on me personally, I can only say that “whereas
I was blind, now I see.” Though sensitive to some forms of art, I was,
when I took it up, much in the dark on questions of æsthetic philosophy;
when I had done with it, I had grasped the main solution of the problem
so clearly that—though I waded through nearly all that the critics and
reviewers had to say about the book—I never again became perplexed upon
the central issues.
Tolstoy was indeed peculiarly qualified for the task he has
accomplished. It was after many years of work as a writer of fiction,
and when he was already standing in the very foremost rank of European
novelists, that he found himself compelled to face, in deadly earnest,
the deepest problems of human life. He not only could not go on writing
books, but he felt he could not live, unless he found clear guidance, so
that he might walk sure-footedly and know the purpose and meaning of his
life. Not as a mere question of speculative curiosity, but as a matter
of vital necessity, he devoted years to rediscover the truths which
underlie all religion.
To fit him for this task he possessed great knowledge of men and books,
a wide experience of life, a knowledge of languages, and a freedom from
bondage to any authority but that of reason and conscience. He was
pinned to no Thirty-nine Articles, and was in receipt of no retaining
fee which he was not prepared to sacrifice. Another gift, rare among men
of his position, was his wonderful sincerity and (due, I think, to that
sincerity) an amazing power of looking at the phenomena of our complex
and artificial life with the eyes of a little child; going straight to
the real, obvious facts of the case, and brushing aside the sophistries,
the conventionalities, and the “authorities” by which they are obscured.
He commenced the task when he was about fifty years of age, and since
then (_i.e._, during the last twenty years) he has produced nine
philosophical or scientific works of first-rate importance, besides a
great many stories and short articles. These works, in chronological
order, are—
_My Confession._
_A Criticism of Dogmatic Theology_, which has never been translated.
_The Four Gospels Harmonised and Translated_, of which only two
parts, out of three, have as yet appeared in English.
_What I Believe_, sometimes called _My Religion_.
_The Gospel in Brief._
_What are we to do then?_ sometimes called in English _What to do?_
_On Life_, which is not an easy work in the original, and has not
been satisfactorily translated.[1]
_The Kingdom of God is within you_; and
_The Christian Teaching_, which appeared after _What is Art?_ though
it was written before it.
To these scientific works I am inclined to add _The Kreutzer Sonata_,
with the _Sequel_ or _Postscript_ explaining its purpose; for though
_The Kreutzer Sonata_ is a story, the understanding of sexual problems,
dealt with explicitly in the _Sequel_, is an integral part of that
comprehension of life which causes Tolstoy to admire Christ, Buddha, or
Francis of Assisi.
These ten works treat of the meaning of our life; of the problems raised
by the fact that we approve of some things and disapprove of others, and
find ourselves deciding which of two courses to pursue.
Religion, Government, Property, Sex, War, and all the relations in which
man stands to man, to his own consciousness, and to the ultimate source
(which we call God) from whence that consciousness proceeds—are examined
with the utmost frankness.
And all this time the problems of Art: What is Art? What importance is
due to it? How is it related to the rest of life?—were working in his
mind. He was a great artist, often upbraided for having abandoned his
art. He, of all men, was bound to clear his thoughts on this perplexing
subject, and to express them. His whole philosophy of life—the
“religious perception” to which, with such tremendous labour and effort,
he had attained, forbade him to detach art from life, and place it in a
water-tight compartment where it should not act on life or be re-acted
upon by life.
Life to him is rational. It has a clear aim and purpose, discernible by
the aid of reason and conscience. And no human activity can be fully
understood or rightly appreciated until the central purpose of life is
perceived.
You cannot piece together a puzzle-map as long as you keep one bit in a
wrong place, but when the pieces all fit together, then you have a
demonstration that they are all in their right places. Tolstoy used that
simile years ago when explaining how the comprehension of the text,
“resist not him that is evil,” enabled him to perceive the
reasonableness of Christ’s teaching, which had long baffled him. So it
is with the problem of Art. Wrongly understood, it will tend to confuse
and perplex your whole comprehension of life. But given the clue
supplied by true “religious perception,” and you can place art so that
it shall fit in with a right understanding of politics, economics,
sex-relationships, science, and all other phases of human activity.
The basis on which this work rests, is a perception of the meaning of
human life. This has been quite lost sight of by some of the reviewers,
who have merely misrepresented what Tolstoy says, and then demonstrated
how very stupid he would have been had he said what they attributed to
him. Leaving his premises and arguments untouched, they dissent from
various conclusions—as though it were all a mere question of taste. They
say that they are very fond of things which Tolstoy ridicules, and that
they can’t understand why he does not like what they like—which is quite
possible, especially if they have not understood the position from which
he starts. But such criticism can lead to nothing. Discussions as to why
one man likes pears and another prefers meat, do not help towards
finding a definition of what is essential in nourishment; and just so,
“the solution of questions of taste in art does not help to make clear
what this particular human activity which we call art really consists
in.”
The object of the following brief summary of a few main points is to
help the reader to avoid pitfalls into which many reviewers have fallen.
It aims at being no more than a bare statement of the positions—for more
than that, the reader must turn to the book itself.
Let it be granted at the outset, that Tolstoy writes for those who have
“ears to hear.” He seldom pauses to safeguard himself against the
captious critic, and cares little for minute verbal accuracy. For
instance, on page 144, he mentions “Paris,” where an English writer
(even one who knew to what an extent Paris is the art centre of France,
and how many artists flock thither from Russia, America, and all ends of
the earth) would have been almost sure to have said “France,” for fear
of being thought to exaggerate. One needs some alertness of mind to
follow Tolstoy in his task of compressing so large a subject into so
small a space. Moreover, he is an emphatic writer who says what he
means, and even, I think, sometimes rather overemphasizes it. With this
much warning let us proceed to a brief summary of Tolstoy’s view of art.
“Art is a human activity,” and consequently does not exist for its own
sake, but is valuable or objectionable in proportion as it is
serviceable or harmful to mankind. The object of this activity is to
transmit to others feeling the artist has experienced. Such
feelings—intentionally re-evoked and successfully transmitted to
others—are the subject-matter of all art. By certain external
signs—movements, lines, colours, sounds, or arrangements of words—an
artist infects other people so that they share his feelings. Thus “art
is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same
feelings.”
Chapters II. to V. contain an examination of various theories which have
taken art to be something other than this, and step by step we are
brought to the conclusion that art is this, and nothing but this.
Having got our definition of art, let us first consider art
independently of its subject-matter, _i.e._, without asking whether the
feelings transmitted are good, bad, or indifferent. Without adequate
expression there is no art, for there is no infection, no transference
to others of the author’s feeling. The test of art is infection. If an
author has moved you so that you feel as he felt, if you are so united
to him in feeling that it seems to you that he has expressed just what
you have long wished to express, the work that has so infected you is a
work of art.
In this sense, it is true that art has nothing to do with morality; for
the test lies in the “infection,” and not in any consideration of the
goodness or badness of the emotions conveyed. Thus the test of art is an
_internal_ one. The activity of art is based on the fact that a man,
receiving, through his sense of hearing or sight, another man’s
expression of feeling, is capable of experiencing the emotion that moved
the man who expressed it. We all share the same common human nature, and
in this sense, at least, are sons of one Father. To take the simplest
example: a man laughs, and another, who hears, becomes merry; or a man
weeps, and another, who hears, feels sorrow. Note in passing that it
does not amount to art “if a man infects others directly, immediately,
at the very time he experiences the feeling; if he causes another man to
yawn when he himself cannot help yawning,” etc. Art begins when some
one, _with the object of making others share his feeling_, expresses his
feeling by certain external indications.
Normal human beings possess this faculty to be infected by the
expression of another man’s emotions. For a plain man of unperverted
taste, living in contact with nature, with animals, and with his
fellow-men—say, for “a country peasant of unperverted taste, this is
as easy as it is for an animal of unspoilt scent to follow the trace
he needs.” And he will know indubitably whether a work presented to
him does, or does not, unite him in feeling with the author. But
very many people “of our circle” (upper and middle class society)
live such unnatural lives, in such conventional relations to the
people around them, and in such artificial surroundings, that they
have lost “that simple feeling, that sense of infection with
another’s feeling—compelling us to joy in another’s gladness, to
sorrow in another’s grief, and to mingle souls with another—which is
the essence of art.” Such people, therefore, have no inner test by
which to recognise a work of art; and they will always be mistaking
other things for art, and seeking for external guides, such as the
opinions of “recognised authorities.” Or they will mistake for art
something that produces a merely physiological effect—lulling or
exciting them; or some intellectual puzzle that gives them something
to think about.
But if most people of the “cultured crowd” are impervious to true art,
is it really possible that a common Russian country peasant, for
instance, whose work-days are filled with agricultural labour, and whose
brief leisure is largely taken up by his family life and by his
participation in the affairs of the village commune—is it possible that
_he_ can recognise and be touched by works of art? Certainly it is! Just
as in ancient Greece crowds assembled to hear the poems of Homer, so
to-day in Russia, as in many countries and many ages, the Gospel
parables, and much else of the highest art, are gladly heard by the
common people. And this does not refer to any superstitious use of the
Bible, but to its use as literature.
Not only do normal, labouring country people possess the capacity to be
infected by good art—“the epic of Genesis, folk-legends, fairy-tales,
folk-songs, etc.,” but they themselves produce songs, stories, dances,
decorations, etc., which are works of true art. Take as examples the
works of Burns or Bunyan, and the peasant women’s song mentioned by
Tolstoy in Chapter XIV., or some of those melodies produced by the negro
slaves on the southern plantations, which have touched, and still touch,
many of us with the emotions felt by their unknown and unpaid composers.
The one great quality which makes a work of art truly contagious is its
_sincerity_. If an artist is really actuated by a feeling, and is
strongly impelled to communicate that feeling to other people—not for
money or fame, or anything else, but because he feels he must share
it—then he will not be satisfied till he has found a _clear_ way of
expressing it. And the man who is not borrowing his feelings, but has
drawn what he expresses from the depths of his nature, is sure to be
_original_, for in the same way that no two people have exactly similar
faces or forms, no two people have exactly similar minds or souls.
That in briefest outline is what Tolstoy says about art, considered
apart from its subject-matter. And this is how certain critics have met
it. They say that when Tolstoy says the test of art is _internal_, he
must mean that it is _external_. When he says that country peasants have
in the past appreciated, and do still appreciate, works of the highest
art, he means that the way to detect a work of art is to see what is
apparently most popular among the masses. Go into the streets or
music-halls of the cities in any particular country and year, and
observe what is most frequently sung, shouted, or played on the
barrel-organs. It may happen to be
“Tarara-boom-deay,”
or,
“We don’t want to fight,
But, by Jingo, if we do.”
But whatever it is, you may at once declare these songs to be the
highest musical art, without even pausing to ask to what they owe their
vogue—what actress, or singer, or politician, or wave of patriotic
passion has conduced to their popularity. Nor need you consider whether
that popularity is not merely temporary and local. Tolstoy has said that
works of the highest art are understood by unperverted country
peasants—and here are things which are popular with the mob, _ergo_,
these things must be the highest art.
The critics then proceed to say that such a test is utterly absurd. And
on this point I am able to agree with the critics.
Some of these writers commence their articles by saying that Tolstoy is
a most profound thinker, a great prophet, an intellectual force, etc.
Yet when Tolstoy, in his emphatic way, makes the sweeping remark that
“good art always pleases every one,” the critics do not read on to find
out what he means, but reply: “No! good art does not please every one;
some people are colour-blind, and some are deaf, or have no ear for
music.”
It is as though a man strenuously arguing a point were to say, “Every
one knows that two and two make four,” and a boy who did not at all see
what the speaker was driving at, were to reply: “No, our new-born baby
doesn’t know it!” It would distract attention from the subject in hand,
but it would not elucidate matters.
There is, of course, a verbal contradiction between the statements that
“good art always pleases every one” (p. 100), and the remark concerning
“people of our circle,” who, “with very few exceptions, artists and
public and critics, ... cannot distinguish true works of art from
counterfeits, but continually mistake for real art the worst and most
artificial” (p. 151). But I venture to think that any one of
intelligence, and free from prejudice, reading this book carefully, need
not fail to reach the author’s meaning.
A point to be carefully noted is the distinction between science and
art. “Science investigates and brings to human perception such truths
and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society consider
most important. Art transmits these truths from the region of perception
to the region of emotion” (p. 102). Science is an “activity of the
understanding which demands preparation and a certain sequence of
knowledge, so that one cannot learn trigonometry before knowing
geometry.” “The business of art,” on the other hand, “lies just in
this—to make that understood and felt which, in the form of an argument,
might be incomprehensible and inaccessible” (p. 102). It “infects any
man whatever his plane of development,” and “the hindrance to
understanding the best and highest _feelings_ (as is said in the gospel)
does not at all lie in deficiency of development or learning, but, on
the contrary, in false development and false learning” (pp. 102, 103).
Science and art are frequently blended in one work—_e.g._, in the gospel
elucidation of Christ’s comprehension of life, or, to take a modern
instance, in Henry George’s elucidation of the land question in
_Progress and Poverty_.
The class distinction to which Tolstoy repeatedly alludes needs some
explanation. The position of the lower classes in England and in Russia
is different. In Russia a much larger number of people live on the verge
of starvation; the condition of the factory-hands is much worse than in
England, and there are many glaring cases of brutal cruelty inflicted on
the peasants by the officials, the police, or the military,—but in
Russia a far greater proportion of the population live in the country,
and a peasant usually has his own house, and tills his share of the
communal lands. The “unperverted country peasant” of whom Tolstoy speaks
is a man who perhaps suffers grievous want when there is a bad harvest
in his province, but he is a man accustomed to the experiences of a
natural life, to the management of his own affairs, and to a real voice
in the arrangements of the village commune. The Government interferes,
from time to time, to collect its taxes by force, to take the young men
for soldiers, or to maintain the “rights” of the upper classes; but
otherwise the peasant is free to do what he sees to be necessary and
reasonable. On the other hand, English labourers are, for the most part,
not so poor, they have more legal rights, and they have votes; but a far
larger number of them live in towns and are engaged in unnatural
occupations, while even those that do live in touch with nature are
usually mere wage-earners, tilling other men’s land, and living often in
abject submission to the farmer, the parson, or the lady-bountiful. They
are dependent on an employer for daily bread, and the condition of a
wage-labourer is as unnatural as that of a landlord.
The tyranny of the St. Petersburg bureaucracy is more dramatic, but less
omnipresent—and probably far less fatal to the capacity to enjoy
art—than the tyranny of our respectable, self-satisfied, and
property-loving middle-class. I am therefore afraid that we have no
great number of “unperverted” country labourers to compare with those of
whom Tolstoy speaks—and some of whom I have known personally. But the
truth Tolstoy elucidates lies far too deep in human nature to be
infringed by such differences of local circumstance. Whatever those
circumstances may be, the fact remains that in proportion as a man
approaches towards the condition not only of “earning his subsistence by
some kind of labour,” but of “living on all its sides the life natural
and proper to mankind,” his capacity to appreciate true art tends to
increase. On the other hand, when a class settles down into an
artificial way of life,—loses touch with nature, becomes confused in its
perceptions of what is good and what is bad, and prefers the condition
of a parasite to that of a producer,—its capacity to appreciate true art
must diminish. Having lost all clear perception of the meaning of life,
such people are necessarily left without any criterion which will enable
them to distinguish good from bad art, and they are sure to follow
eagerly after beauty, or “that which pleases them.”
The artists of our society can usually only reach people of the upper
and middle classes. But who is the great artist?—he who delights a
select audience of his own day and class, or he whose works link
generation to generation and race to race in a common bond of feeling?
Surely art should fulfil its purpose as completely as possible. A work
of art that united every one with the author, and with one another,
would be perfect art. Tolstoy, in his emphatic way, speaks of works of
“universal” art, and (though the profound critics hasten to inform us
that no work of art ever reached everybody) certainly the more nearly a
work of art approaches to such expression of feeling that every one may
be infected by it—the nearer (apart from all question of subject-matter)
it approaches perfection.
But now as to subject-matter. The subject-matter of art consists of
feelings which can be spread from man to man, feelings which are
“contagious” or “infectious.” Is it of no importance _what_ feelings
increase and multiply among men?
One man feels that submission to the authority of _his_ church, and
belief in all that it teaches him, is good; another is embued by a sense
of each man’s duty to think with his own head—to use for his guidance in
life the reason and conscience given to him. One man feels that his
nation _ought to_ wipe out in blood the shame of a defeat inflicted on
her; another feels that we are brothers, sons of one spirit, and that
the slaughter of man by man is always wrong. One man feels that the most
desirable thing in life is the satisfaction obtainable by the love of
women; another man feels that sex-love is an entanglement and a snare,
hindering his real work in life. And each of these, if he possess an
artist’s gift of expression, and if the feeling be really his own and
sincere, may infect other men. But some of these feelings will benefit
and some will harm mankind, and the more widely they are spread the
greater will be their effect.
Art unites men. Surely it is desirable that the feelings in which it
unites them should be “the best and highest to which men have risen,” or
at least should not run contrary to our perception of what makes for the
well-being of ourselves and of others. And our perception of what makes
for the well-being of ourselves and of others is what Tolstoy calls our
“religious perception.”
Therefore the subject-matter of what we, in our day, can esteem as being
the best art, can be of two kinds only—
(1) Feelings flowing from the highest perception now attainable by man
of our right relation to our neighbour and to the Source from which we
come. Dickens’ “Christmas Carol,” uniting us in a more vivid sense of
compassion and love, is a ready example of such art.
(2) The simple feelings of common life, accessible to every one—provided
that they are such as do not hinder progress towards well-being. Art of
this kind makes us realise to how great an extent we already are members
one of another—sharing the feelings of one common human nature.
The success of a very primitive novel—the story of Joseph, which made
its way into the sacred books of the Jews, spread from land to land and
from age to age, and continues to be read to-day among people quite free
from bibliolatry—shows how nearly “universal” may be the appeal of this
kind of art. This branch includes all harmless jokes, folk-stories,
nursery rhymes, and even dolls, if only the author or designer has
expressed a feeling (tenderness, pleasure, humour, or what not) so as to
infect others.
But how are we to know what _are_ the “best” feelings? What is good? and
what is evil? This is decided by “religious perception.” Some such
perception exists in every human being; there is always something he
approves of, and something he disapproves of. Reason and conscience are
always present, active or latent, as long as man lives. Miss Flora Shaw
tells that the most degraded cannibal she ever met, drew the line at
eating his own mother—nothing would induce him to entertain the thought,
his moral sense was revolted by the suggestion. In most societies the
“religious perception,” to which they have advanced,—the foremost stage
in mankind’s long march towards perfection, which has been
discerned,—has been clearly expressed by some one, and more or less
consciously accepted as an ideal by the many. But there are transition
periods in history when the worn-out formularies of a past age have
ceased to satisfy men, or have become so incrusted with superstitions
that their original brightness is lost. The “religious perception” that
is dawning may not yet have found such expression as to be generally
understood, but for all that it exists, and shows itself by compelling
men to repudiate beliefs that satisfied their forefathers, the outward
and visible signs of which are still endowed and dominant long after
their spirit has taken refuge in temples not made with hands.
At such times it is difficult for men to understand each other, for the
very _words_ needed to express the deepest experiences of men’s
consciousness mean different things to different men. So among us
to-day, to many minds _faith_ means _credulity_, and _God_ suggests a
person of the male sex, father of one only-begotten son, and creator of
the universe.
This is why Tolstoy’s clear and rational “religious perception,”
expressed in the books named on a previous page, is frequently spoken of
by people who have not grasped it, as “mysticism.”
The narrow materialist is shocked to find that Tolstoy will not confine
himself to the “objective” view of life. Encountering in himself that
“inner voice” which compels us all to choose between good and evil,
Tolstoy refuses to be diverted from a matter which is of immediate and
vital importance to him, by discussions as to the derivation of the
external manifestations of conscience which biologists are able to
detect in remote forms of life. The real mystic, on the other hand,
shrinks from Tolstoy’s desire to try all things by the light of reason,
to depend on nothing vague, and to accept nothing on authority. The man
who does not trust his own reason, fears that life thus squarely faced
will prove less worth having than it is when clothed in mist.
In this work, however, Tolstoy does not recapitulate at length what he
has said before. He does not pause to re-explain why he condemns
Patriotism—_i.e._, each man’s preference for the predominance of _his
own_ country, which leads to the murder of man by man in war; or
Churches, which are sectarian—_i.e._, which striving to assert that your
doxy is heterodoxy, but that _our_ doxy is orthodoxy, make external
authorities (Popes, Bibles, Councils) supreme, and cling to
superstitions (_their own_ miracles, legends, and myths), thus
separating themselves from communion with the rest of mankind. Nor does
he re-explain why he (like Christ) says “pitiable is your plight—ye
rich,” who live artificial lives, maintainable only by the unbrotherly
use of force (police and soldiers), but blessed are ye poor—who, by your
way of life, are within easier reach of brotherly conditions, if you
will but trust to reason and conscience, and change the direction of
your hearts and of your labour,—working no more primarily from fear or
greed, but seeking _first_ the kingdom of righteousness, in which all
good things will be added unto you. He merely summarises it all in a few
sentences, defining the “religious perception” of to-day, which alone
can decide for us “the degree of importance both of the feelings
transmitted by art and of the information transmitted by science.”
“The religious perception of our time, in its widest and most practical
application, is the consciousness that our well-being, both material and
spiritual, individual and collective, temporal and eternal, lies in the
growth of brotherhood among men—in their loving harmony with one
another” (p. 159).
And again:
“However differently in form people belonging to our Christian world may
define the destiny of man; whether they see it in human progress in
whatever sense of the words, in the union of all men in a socialistic
realm, or in the establishment of a commune; whether they look forward
to the union of mankind under the guidance of one universal Church, or
to the federation of the world,—however various in form their
definitions of the destination of human life may be, all men in our
times already admit that the highest well-being attainable by men is to
be reached by their union with one another” (p. 188).
This is the foundation on which the whole work is based. It follows
necessarily from this perception that we should consider as most
important in science “investigations into the results of good and bad
actions, considerations of the reasonableness or unreasonableness of
human institutions and beliefs, considerations of how human life should
be lived in order to obtain the greatest well-being for each; as to what
one may and ought, and what one cannot and should not believe; how to
subdue one’s passions, and how to acquire the habit of virtue.” This is
the science that “occupied Moses, Solon, Socrates, Epictetus, Confucius,
Mencius, Marcus Aurelius, Spinoza, and all those who have taught men to
live a moral life,” and it is precisely the kind of scientific
investigation to which Tolstoy has devoted most of the last twenty
years, and for the sake of which he is often said to have “abandoned
art.”
Since science, like art, is a “human activity,” _that_ science best
deserves our esteem, best deserves to be “chosen, tolerated, approved,
and diffused,” which treats of what is supremely important to man; which
deals with urgent, vital, inevitable problems of actual life. Such
science as this brings “to the consciousness of men the truths that flow
from the religious perception of our times,” and “indicates the various
methods of applying this consciousness to life.” “Art should transform
this perception into feeling.”
The “science” which is occupied in “pouring liquids from one jar into
another, or analysing the spectrum, or cutting up frogs and porpoises,”
is no use for rendering such guidance to art, though capable of
practical applications which, under a more righteous system of society,
might greatly have lightened the sufferings of mankind.
Naturally enough, the last chapter of the book deals with the relation
between science and art. And the conclusion is that:
“The destiny of art in our time is to transmit from the realm of reason
to the realm of feeling the truth that well-being for men consists in
being united together, and to set up, in place of the existing reign of
force, that kingdom of God, _i.e._ of love, which we all recognise to be
the highest aim of human life.”
And this art of the future will not be poorer, but far richer, in
subject-matter than the art of to-day. From the lullaby—that will
delight millions of people, generation after generation—to the highest
religious art, dealing with strong, rich, and varied emotions flowing
from a fresh outlook upon life and all its problems—the field open for
good art is enormous. With so much to say that is urgently important to
all, the art of the future will, in matter of form also, be far superior
to our art in “clearness, beauty, simplicity, and compression” (p. 194).
For beauty (_i.e._, “that which pleases”)—though it depends on taste,
and can furnish no _criterion_ for art—will be a natural characteristic
of work done, not for hire, nor even for fame, but because men, living a
natural and healthy life, wish to share the “highest spiritual strength
which passes through them” with the greatest possible number of others.
The feelings such an artist wishes to share, he will transmit in a way
that will please him, and will please other men who share his nature.
Morality is in the nature of things—we cannot escape it.
In a society where each man sets himself to obtain wealth, the
difficulty of obtaining an honest living tends to become greater and
greater. The more keenly a society pants to obtain “that which pleases,”
and puts this forward as the first and great consideration, the more
puerile and worthless will their art become. But in a society which
sought, primarily, for right relations between its members, an abundance
would easily be obtainable for all; and when “religious perception”
guides a people’s art—beauty inevitably results, as has always been the
case when men have seized a fresh perception of life and of its purpose.
* * * * *
An illustration which Tolstoy struck out of the work while it was being
printed, may serve to illustrate how, with the aid of the principles
explained above, we may judge of the merits of any work professing to be
art.
Take _Romeo and Juliet_. The conventional view is that Shakespear is the
greatest of artists, and that _Romeo and Juliet_ is one of his good
plays. Why this is so nobody can tell you. It is so: that is the way
certain people feel about it. They are “the authorities,” and to doubt
their dictum is to show that you know nothing about art. Tolstoy does
not agree with them in their estimate of Shakespear, therefore Tolstoy
is wrong!
But now let us apply Tolstoy’s view of art to _Romeo and Juliet_. He
does not deny that it infects. “Let us admit that it is a work of art,
that it infects (though it is so artificial that it can infect only
those who have been carefully educated thereunto); but what are the
feelings it transmits?”
That is to say, judging by the _internal_ test, Tolstoy admits that
_Romeo and Juliet_ unites him to its author and to other people in
feeling. But the work is very far from being one of “universal” art—only
a small minority of people ever have cared, or ever will care, for it.
Even in England, or even in the layer of European society it is best
adapted to reach, it only touches a minority, and does not approach the
universality attained by the story of Joseph and many pieces of
folk-lore.
But perhaps the subject-matter, the _feeling_ with which _Romeo and
Juliet_ infects those whom it does reach, lifts it into the class of the
highest religious art? Not so. The feeling is one of the attractiveness
of “love at first sight.” A girl fourteen years old and a young man meet
at an aristocratic party, where there is feasting and pleasure and
idleness, and, without knowing each other’s minds, they fall in love as
the birds and beasts do. If any feeling is transmitted to us, it is the
feeling that there _is_ a pleasure in these things. Somewhere, in most
natures, there dwells, dominant or dormant, an inclination to let such
physical sexual attraction guide our course in life. To give it a plain
name, it is “sensuality.” “How can I, father or mother of a daughter of
Juliet’s age, wish that those foul feelings which the play transmits
should be communicated to my daughter? And if the feelings transmitted
by the play are bad, how can I call it good in subject-matter?”
But, objects a friend, the _moral_ of _Romeo and Juliet_ is excellent.
See what disasters followed from the physical “love at first sight.” But
that is quite another matter. It is the feelings with which you are
infected when reading, and not any moral you can deduce, that is
subject-matter of art. Pondering upon the consequences that flow from
Romeo and Juliet’s behaviour may belong to the domain of moral science,
but not to that of art.
I have hesitated to use an illustration Tolstoy had struck out, but I
think it serves its purpose. No doubt there are other, subordinate,
feelings (_e.g._ humour) to be found in _Romeo and Juliet_; but many
quaint conceits that are ingenious, and have been much admired, are not,
I think, infectious.
Tried by such tests, the enormous majority of the things we have been
taught to consider great works of art are found wanting. Either they
fail to infect (and attract merely by being interesting, realistic,
effectful, or by borrowing from others), and are therefore not works of
art at all; or they are works of “exclusive art,” bad in form and
capable of infecting only a select audience trained and habituated to
such inferior art; or they are bad in subject-matter, transmitting
feelings harmful to mankind.
Tolstoy does not shrink from condemning his own artistic productions;
with the exception of two short stories, he tells us they are works of
bad art. Take, for instance, the novel _Resurrection_, which is now
appearing, and of which he has, somewhere, spoken disparagingly, as
being “written in my former style,” and being therefore bad art. What
does this mean? The book is a masterpiece in its own line; it is eagerly
read in many languages; it undoubtedly infects its readers, and the
feelings transmitted are, in the main, such as Tolstoy approves of—in
fact, they are the feelings to which his religious perception has
brought him. If lust is felt in one chapter, the reaction follows as
inevitably as in real life, and is transmitted with great artistic
power. Why a work of such rare merit does not satisfy Tolstoy, is
because it is a work of “exclusive art,” laden with details of time and
place. It has not the “simplicity and compression” necessary in works of
“universal” art. Things are mentioned which might apparently be quite
well omitted. The style, also, is not one of great simplicity; the
sentences are often long and involved, as is commonly the case in
Tolstoy’s writings. It is a novel appealing mainly to the class that has
leisure for novel reading because it neglects to produce its own food,
make its own clothes, or build its own houses. If Tolstoy is stringent
in his judgment of other artists, he is more stringent still in his
judgment of his own artistic works. Had _Resurrection_ been written by
Dickens, or by Hugo, Tolstoy would, I think, have found a place for it
(with whatever reservations) among the examples of religious art. For
indeed, strive as we may to be clear and explicit, our approval and
disapproval is a matter of degree. The thought which underlay the
remark: “Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, even God,”
applies not to man only, but to all things human.
_What is Art?_ itself is a work of science—though many passages, and
even some whole chapters, appeal to us as works of art, and we feel the
contagion of the author’s hope, his anxiety to serve the cause of truth
and love, his indignation (sometimes rather sharply expressed) with what
blocks the path of advance, and his contempt for much that the “cultured
crowd,” in our erudite, perverted society, have persuaded themselves,
and would fain persuade others, is the highest art.
One result which follows inevitably from Tolstoy’s view (and which
illustrates how widely his views differ from the fashionable æsthetic
mysticism), is that art is not stationary but progressive. It is true
that our highest religious perception found expression eighteen hundred
years ago, and then served as the basis of an art which is still
unmatched; and similar cases can be instanced from the East. But
allowing for such great exceptions,—to which, not inaptly, the term of
“inspiration” has been specially applied,—the subject-matter of art
improves, though long periods of time may have to be considered in order
to make this obvious. Our power of verbal expression, for instance, may
now be no better than it was in the days of David, but we must no longer
esteem as good _in subject-matter_ poems which appeal to the Eternal to
destroy a man’s private or national foes; for we have reached a
“religious perception” which bids us have no foes, and the ultimate
source (undefinable by us) from which this consciousness has come, is
what we mean when we speak of God.
AYLMER MAUDE.
Wickham’s Farm,
Near Danbury, Essex,
_23rd March 1899_.
Footnote 1:
Bolton Hall has recently published a little work, _Life, and Love, and
Death_, with the object of making the philosophy contained in _On
Life_ more easily accessible in English.
The Author’s Preface
This book of mine, “What is Art?” appears now for the first time in its
true form. More than one edition has already been issued in Russia, but
in each case it has been so mutilated by the “Censor,” that I request
all who are interested in my views on art only to judge of them by the
work in its present shape. The causes which led to the publication of
the book—with my name attached to it—in a mutilated form, were the
following:—In accordance with a decision I arrived at long ago,—not to
submit my writings to the “Censorship” (which I consider to be an
immoral and irrational institution), but to print them only in the shape
in which they were written,—I intended not to attempt to print this work
in Russia. However, my good acquaintance Professor Grote, editor of a
Moscow psychological magazine, having heard of the contents of my work,
asked me to print it in his magazine, and promised me that he would get
the book through the “Censor’s” office unmutilated if I would but agree
to a few very unimportant alterations, merely toning down certain
expressions. I was weak enough to agree to this, and it has resulted in
a book appearing, under my name, from which not only have some essential
thoughts been excluded, but into which the thoughts of other men—even
thoughts utterly opposed to my own convictions—have been introduced.
The thing occurred in this way. First, Grote softened my expressions,
and in some cases weakened them. For instance, he replaced the words:
_always_ by _sometimes_, _all_ by _some_, _Church_ religion by _Roman
Catholic_ religion, “_Mother of God_” by _Madonna_, _patriotism_ by
_pseudo-patriotism_, _palaces_ by _palatii_,[2] etc., and I did not
consider it necessary to protest. But when the book was already in type,
the Censor required that whole sentences should be altered, and that
instead of what I said about the evil of landed property, a remark
should be substituted on the evils of a landless proletariat.[3] I
agreed to this also and to some further alterations. It seemed not worth
while to upset the whole affair for the sake of one sentence, and when
one alteration had been agreed to it seemed not worth while to protest
against a second and a third. So, little by little, expressions crept
into the book which altered the sense and attributed things to me that I
could not have wished to say. So that by the time the book was printed
it had been deprived of some part of its integrity and sincerity. But
there was consolation in the thought that the book, even in this form,
if it contains something that is good, would be of use to Russian
readers whom it would otherwise not have reached. Things, however,
turned out otherwise. _Nous comptions sans notre hôte._ After the legal
term of four days had already elapsed, the book was seized, and, on
instructions received from Petersburg, it was handed over to the
“Spiritual Censor.” Then Grote declined all further participation in the
affair, and the “Spiritual Censor” proceeded to do what he would with
the book. The “Spiritual Censorship” is one of the most ignorant, venal,
stupid, and despotic institutions in Russia. Books which disagree in any
way with the recognised state religion of Russia, if once it gets hold
of them, are almost always totally suppressed and burnt; which is what
happened to all my religious works when attempts were made to print them
in Russia. Probably a similar fate would have overtaken this work also,
had not the editors of the magazine employed all means to save it. The
result of their efforts was that the “Spiritual Censor,” a priest who
probably understands art and is interested in art as much as I
understand or am interested in church services, but who gets a good
salary for destroying whatever is likely to displease his superiors,
struck out all that seemed to him to endanger his position, and
substituted his thoughts for mine wherever he considered it necessary to
do so. For instance, where I speak of Christ going to the Cross for the
sake of the truth He professed, the “Censor” substituted a statement
that Christ died for mankind, _i.e._ he attributed to me an assertion of
the dogma of the Redemption, which I consider to be one of the most
untrue and harmful of Church dogmas. After correcting the book in this
way, the “Spiritual Censor” allowed it to be printed.
To protest in Russia is impossible, no newspaper would publish such a
protest, and to withdraw my book from the magazine and place the editor
in an awkward position with the public was also not possible.
So the matter has remained. A book has appeared under my name containing
thoughts attributed to me which are not mine.
I was persuaded to give my article to a Russian magazine, in order that
my thoughts, which may be useful, should become the possession of
Russian readers; and the result has been that my name is affixed to a
work from which it might be assumed that I quite arbitrarily assert
things contrary to the general opinion, without adducing my reasons;
that I only consider false patriotism bad, but patriotism in general a
very good feeling; that I merely deny the absurdities of the Roman
Catholic Church and disbelieve in the Madonna, but that I believe in the
Orthodox Eastern faith and in the “Mother of God”; that I consider all
the writings collected in the Bible to be holy books, and see the chief
importance of Christ’s life in the Redemption of mankind by his death.
I have narrated all this in such detail because it strikingly
illustrates the indubitable truth, that all compromise with institutions
of which your conscience disapproves,—compromises which are usually made
for the sake of the general good,—instead of producing the good you
expected, inevitably lead you not only to acknowledge the institution
you disapprove of, but also to participate in the evil that institution
produces.
I am glad to be able by this statement at least to do something to
correct the error into which I was led by my compromise.
I have also to mention that besides reinstating the parts excluded by
the Censor from the Russian editions, other corrections and additions of
importance have been made in this edition.
LEO TOLSTOY.
_29th March 1898._
Footnote 2:
Tolstoy’s remarks on Church religion were re-worded so as to seem to
relate only to the Western Church, and his disapproval of luxurious
life was made to apply not, say, to Queen Victoria or Nicholas II.,
but to the Cæsars or the Pharaohs.—Trans.
Footnote 3:
The Russian peasant is usually a member of a village commune, and has
therefore a right to a share in the land belonging to the village.
Tolstoy disapproves of the order of society which allows less land for
the support of a whole village full of people than is sometimes owned
by a single landed proprietor. The “Censor” will not allow disapproval
of this state of things to be expressed, but is prepared to admit that
the laws and customs, say, of England—where a yet more extreme form of
landed property exists, and the men who actually labour on the land
usually possess none of it—deserve criticism.—Trans.
Contents
INTRODUCTION v
AUTHOR’S PREFACE xxxiii
CHAPTER I
Time and labour spent on art—Lives stunted in its service—Morality
sacrificed to and anger justified by art—The rehearsal of an opera
described 1