# 28. Count Leo Tolstoy - What Is Art? Count Leo Tolstoy published a pamphlet entitled "What is Art?". The Russian novelist has destroyed the sympathies of a large number of his former admirers since

## GA 271

28. Count Leo Tolstoy - What Is Art?
Count Leo Tolstoy published a pamphlet entitled "What is Art?". The Russian novelist has destroyed the sympathies of a large number of his former admirers since he became a moral preacher. The content of his moral doctrine is not at all on a par with his artistry. This content is an emotional morality based on universal human love and compassion and aimed at combating egoism. Watered-down Christianity is the best expression one can find for it. From the standpoint of this moral doctrine, Tolstoy also answers the question he now asks himself: "What is art?" He begins by pointing out the enormous amount of human labor required to produce a work of art. He starts from an opera rehearsal he once attended. He describes the time and effort involved in such a rehearsal and how unkindly the directors treat the personnel they are dealing with. And then he says to himself: what is the result of all this effort and work? "Who is all this for? Who can like it? Even if there are occasionally beautiful motifs in this opera that are pleasant to hear, they could simply be sung without these stupid disguises, elevators, recitatives and arm swings. A ballet, however, in which half-naked women perform sensually exciting movements and entangle themselves in garlands, is nothing more than a morally corrupting performance, so that one cannot even understand for whom it is intended. An educated person has had enough of it, and an ordinary worker simply does not understand it. It can only appeal - which I also doubt - to those who are not yet saturated with so-called lordly pleasures, but who have acquired lordly needs and want to show off their education like young lackeys... And all this ugly stupidity is not rehearsed good-naturedly, not simply cheerfully, but with malice, with animal cruelty." Because art demands such sacrifices, we must ask ourselves: What is the purpose of art? What does art contribute to the overall development of human culture? In order to answer this question, Tolstoy looks to the German, French and English aestheticians who have published their views on the tasks of art. He comes to an unfavorable judgment of these aestheticians. He finds that there is no agreement on the concept of art. "If one disregards," he says, "the definitions of beauty, which are quite imprecise and do not cover the concept of art, and whose essence is sometimes in utility, sometimes in expediency, sometimes in symmetry, sometimes in order, sometimes in proportionality, sometimes in proportion. If we disregard these inadequate attempts at objective definitions, all aesthetic definitions of beauty can be traced back to two basic views: the first, that beauty is something existing in itself, one of the phenomena of the absolutely perfect, of the idea, of the spirit, of the will, of God, - and the second, that beauty is a certain pleasure felt by us, which does not confer personal advantages. pleasure which has no personal advantage as its end."
Tolstoy finds both views imperfect, and he sees the reason for their imperfection in the fact that they are based on a primitive view of human culture. On a primitive level of views, people also see the purpose of eating in the pleasure that eating gives them. A higher level of insight is when they recognize that the purpose of eating is nourishment and thus the promotion of life, and when they regard enjoyment only as a subordinate addition. In the same way, the person who believes that the purpose of art is the enjoyment of beauty is at a low level. "In order to define art accurately, one must above all cease to regard it as a means to enjoyment, but must see in art one of the conditions of human life. From this point of view, we must admit that art is one of the means of human intercourse." Tolstoy does not regard art as an end in itself. People should understand, love and support each other; that is the purpose of every culture. Art should only be a means of realizing this higher purpose. People communicate their thoughts and experiences through *words*. Through language, the individual lives in and with the whole of the human race. What words alone cannot do to bring about this coexistence, art should achieve. It should convey feelings and emotions from person to person, just as words do with experiences and thoughts. "The activity of art is based on the fact that a person, by perceiving the expression of another's feelings through the ear or the eye, is able to empathize with these feelings."
I believe that Tolstoy overlooks the origin of art. It is not the communication that matters to the artist first. When I see a phenomenon of nature or of human life, an original impulse drives me to form an image of this phenomenon in my mind. And my imagination urges me to transform and shape this image in a way that corresponds to certain inclinations in me. To shape this image, I make use of the means that correspond to my abilities. If these means are colors, then I paint, and if they are ideas, then I write poetry. I do not do this in order to communicate, but because I feel the need to create images of the world that my imagination gives me. I am not satisfied with the form that nature and human life take for me if I merely view them as a passive spectator. I want to create images that I invent myself or that I reproduce in my own way, even if I take them in from the outside. People do not want to be mere observers, they do not want to be mere spectators of world events. He also wants to create something of his own in addition to that which penetrates him from the outside. That is why he becomes an artist. How this creation then continues to have an effect is a consequence. And if we are to speak of the effect of art on human culture, Tolstoy may be right. But the *justification* of art as such, regardless of its effect, must be sought in an original need of human nature.