What is Art? by Leo Tolstoy

Author:Leo Tolstoy
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2004-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

XII

Three conditions contribute to the production in our society of objects of counterfeit art. These conditions are: (1) the considerable remuneration of artists for their works and the resultant establishing of the artist as a professional, (2) art criticism, and (3) art schools.

As long as art was undivided, and only religious art was appreciated and encouraged, while indifferent art was not, there were no counterfeit works of art; or, if there were, being subject to the judgement of the whole people, they would drop away at once. But as soon as the division had been accomplished, and people of the wealthy classes recognized any art as good so long as it afforded pleasure, and this pleasure-affording art began to be remunerated more highly than any other public activity, then at once a great number of people devoted themselves to this activity, and it acquired a totally different character than formerly and became a profession.

And as soon as art became a profession, the chief and most precious property of art – its sincerity – became significantly weakened and was partly destroyed.

The professional artist lives by his art, and must therefore constantly invent subjects for his works, and invent them he does. It is clear what difference must exist between works of art when created by people such as the Hebrew prophets, the authors of the Psalms, Francis of Assisi, the author of the Iliad and Odyssey, of all folk tales, legends, and songs, who not only received no remuneration for their works, but did not even connect their names with them, and when art was first produced by court poets, playwrights, musicians, who received honour and remuneration for it, and then by official artists, who lived by their craft and received remuneration from journalists, publishers, impresarios and middlemen in general, who stand between the artists and the urban public – the consumers of art.

This professionalism is the first condition for the spread of counterfeit, false art.

The second condition is the recently emerged art criticism – that is, the evaluation of art, not by everyone, and above all not by ordinary people, but by learned, and therefore perverted and at the same time self-assured, individuals.

A friend of mine, speaking of the attitude of critics towards artists, defined it half jokingly like this: critics are the stupid discussing the clever. This definition, however one-sided, imprecise and crude, still contains a partial truth, and is incomparably more correct than the one according to which critics are supposed to explain works of art.

‘Critics explain.’ But what do they explain?

An artist, if he is a true artist, has in his work conveyed to others the feeling he has experienced: what is there to explain?

If the work is good as art, then the feeling expressed by the artist is conveyed to others, regardless of whether the work is moral or immoral. If it is conveyed to others, they experience it, and experience it, moreover, each in his own way, and all interpretation is superfluous. If the work does not infect others, then no interpretation is going to make it infectious.

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