Leo Tolstoy's "What is Art?"
The Russian novelists definition rings true.
Alright, I did not make the morning post today. Moving right along.
The introductory readings to my Ethics and the Arts course include Plato’s definition and criticism of imitative art from The Republic, Tolstoy’s essay “What is Art?”, and Oscar Wilde’s The Decay of Living. I have read the last, the middle is exceptional, and the former is repugnant.
In this section of The Republic that Plato goes full sneering epistocrat: the philosopher-kings should only permit that art which advances virtue which, of course, is real, objective, and somehow inaccessible to everyone except them. Alright. Going to pass on Plato’s specious excuse of an argument that involves his infamous “noble lie.” Plato arrogantly regards poetry—art—as imitation of appearance and so “thrice removed from the truth” (I may be paraphrasing; this may also be an exact quote). Consequently, he regards even great poets like Homer and Hesiod as ignorant imitators who appeal to the passions of the populace. Philosophers, on the other hand, discover the truth through the exercise of reason and communicate this benevolently to the benighted, unenlightened masses.
Tolstoy defines art in juxtaposition to speech; though both are a manner of communication, “by words a man transmits his thoughts to another, by means of art he transmits his feelings.” In this sense, he concurs with Plato insofar as both regard poetry, music, painting, &c. as interacting with the passions of man. The goodness of art qua art derives from “the degree of [its] infectiousness,” which, in turn, is contingent on three things: individuality, clarity, and sincerity (the last comprises the first two). However, not all infectious art is morally good; Tolstoy recognizes that art can retard the “movement of humanity forward toward perfection” just as it can advance it. Still, Tolstoy impugns “Plato in his Republic and people such as the primitive Christians, the strict Mohammedans, and the Buddhists” for going "so far as to repudiate all art.”
Tolstoy’s essay is concise and cogent—I have not done it justice. The reader should do himself a favor and consider it for himself. If he does so, I believe he’ll find striking similarity between Tolstoy’s essay and Emerson’s “On History.” A teaser: “he feels as if the work were his own and not someone else’s — as if what it expresses were just what he had long been wishing to express.”
P.S. Frances, don’t worry—I’ll write about Wilde’s defense of art for art’s sake in the near future.