What would you say are the “rules and values” Tolstoy applied in his philosophy of art? How would you summarize his “checklist”?
A thorough reading of Tolstoy’s What is Art? and A Confession, as well On Life, will show that it is absurd to reduce his philosophy, based on a broad investigation into other writers followed by deep, intellectual reflection and analysis, to a “checklist.” On Tolstoy’s “value system” - he believed that life has a religious meaning, but I think here “religious” needs to be defined more as faithful devotion to a set of principles, and Tolstoy’s devotion was to “reason, justice and love.” I’ve just started to read his book On Life, and it begins with this quote from Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), which just as well reflects Tolstoy’s philosophy and morality: Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but a thinking reed. It is not necessary that the universe in its entirely should arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water, is sufficient to slay him. But even were the universe to crush him, he would still be nobler than that which kills him, because he knows he dies. The advantage the universe has over man, it is unconscious. Thus the whole of our nobility consists in thought, and it is this which should elevate us, not space and time. Let us therefore strive to think well. Here is the principle of morality. Tolstoy did see life as a tendency from evil to good. In his words, “Life is only necessary in order to be good.” and “Man only studies life in order to ameliorate it.” This goes to the heart of Tolstoy’s philosophy of art. He saw art as sharing, and that sharing increases the good, but only if it is sincere. So, his morality shouldn’t be confused with a tyranny of thought. Quite the opposite. In fact, because he followed his reason, because he was a thinker above all, the Church heavily censored him, and in the end excommunicated him.
You certainly can’t separate Tolstoy the artist from Tolstoy the thinker. Two questions occupied him: “What is Art?” and “What is the meaning of life?” But he was more than a thinker and an artist. He was an activist. He stood up for justice, primarily, in legal defense of peasants. That quote, and the anecdotes below, are taken from Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy: Political and Legal Views and Protection of Religious Rights (by Y.N. Sushkova) In 1861 (when he was 32 years old) Tolstoy was appointed an amiable compositeur, (what we would call Justice of the Peace today), following the abolition of serfdom. But the landholders had him removed because he was solving too many of the cases in favour of the peasants. In 1866, he defended (Tolstoy went to law school) a record clerk in a criminal matter. The clerk had been accused of striking a commanding officer. Tolstoy argued that the man had been provoked to a mental instability by an officer who was abusive, but his arguments were unsuccessful. The accused was sentenced to death by shooting. The case illustrated for Tolstoy the “ruthless power of the state based on violence.” He wrote to a friend: It’s incidents like these which I am sure bolstered his pacifism. Another way Tolstoy put his money where his mouth is his 1898 decision to use the proceeds from his work Resurrection to help resettle in Canada the oppressed sectarian group known as the Doukhobors. About Resurrection, Tolstoy said: So, yes, Tolstoy believed in moral responsibility and spiritual development, and these are shaped by a central concept that came to dominate his social and political thought: nasilie. Tolstoy thought nasilie could best be overcome by nonviolent resistance. Would you call Martin Luther King moralistic? “In his own writings, Dr. King pointed to the Russian writer as a primary source of his inspiration. King read Tolstoy and his religious texts, as well as War and Peace, as did Gandhi before him.” 10 People Who Inspired Martin Luther King (And He Hoped Would Inspire Us) King was inspired by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi – “one of the most iconic leaders of Indian non-violent resistance against the British” - too, who was inspired by Tolstoy. It all leads back to Tolstoy. Gandhi and Tolstoy enjoyed a correspondence during 1909-1910. And Tolstoy’s Influence on Gandhi: A Legacy of Nonviolent Resistance We should all be so moralistic as Tolstoy, Gandhi and King.
Literature is a form of art too just like any painting, interpretation is subjective. A kids book I read recently suggests that secret chambers beneath the river were coded in the Mona Lisa painting , da Vinci designed a diving suit. Take that from it what you will. Conspiracy theories are many, usually harboured by people who believe they’re being watched.
As far as I know, he wasn’t. But it doesn’t matter since King wasn’t doing literary criticism. King and Gandhi and Tolstoy had respectable ethical beliefs and everything, but what was Gandhi’s theory of art? I’m not sure if he had one, but if he did maybe it would be a good topic for this thread. I love Tolstoy’s fiction—I don’t think his views on King Lear are worth much—from what I can tell, a lot of this has to do with a moral judgement of Shakespeare in addition to aesthetic differences. What Tolstoy’s actual ethical principles were and how he expressed them are two different things; here he is expressing them obnoxiously. Moralism isn’t when you think it’s a good idea to stop drinking, it’s when you go around destroying barrooms with an axe so nobody else can either. It has an aspect of intolerance that I think is also on display in Tolstoy’s denunciations of King Lear.
This may be splitting hairs. Tolstoy, Gandhi and King had a shared philosophy, and applied it to their sphere of influence. Mahatma Gandhi and his contemporary artists What would you say he is intolerant of?
In the pamphlet, Tolstoy suggested that Shakespeare was dishonestly creating a contrived set of events and characters without substance in order to satiate the public, the ruling class, whoever. He suggests this to be the case primarily because the progress of King Lear is contradictory to his understanding of what was natural and congruent for these characters and these situations. Ultimately, what I'm left with after reading his criticism is that Shakespeare did not write King Lear as Tolstoy would have, and the precedent version of King Leir by author unknown was closer to how Tolstoy would see events unfold, concluding that Shakespeare diminished the source material. Within that analysis, it occurs that, in Tolstoy's view, there is one way to portray these characters in these circumstances that is true to his notion of what constitutes art, with all that "moral" dressing. Others, perhaps Shakespeare, disagree and suggest there are techniques relating to juxtaposition, dramatic licence, subtext and metaphor that can convey artistic intent, should one care to find it in that direction. There can be beauty in the words that reveal truths and maybe that was Shakespeare's intent, not to be bothered with characters who do this or that or the other but truth as character, revealed in the singular voice which is that of Shakespeare, which Tolstoy finds so galling. It's really not that Tolstoy had convictions about the nature of art, borne to some degree by life choices he made, though his family may have had different views. It's not that he disregards the artistic merit of Shakespeare's plays. It's his assumption that he can perceive intent, see inside the writer and, by his measure, decide whether or not that person meets his moralistic criteria for artistic achievement, based on his ideas of how the complexity of human experience is properly portrayed in written work. That strikes me as intolerant.
It’s significant that you mention the “ruling class.” If you read Tolstoy on Shakespeare, you’ll notice that in the Appendix there is an essay by Ernest Crosby, Shakespeare’s Attitude Toward the Working Classes. It’s a very good read, and I won’t go into the particulars, except to say that Shakespeare and Tolstoy held very different viewpoints on the “lower classes.” Shakespeare’s plays elevate kings and dukes and relegate the lower classes to ridicule and buffoonery, while Tolstoy believed peasants are the most moral people and those closest to the truth. So, there is a real divergence in outlook, and I imagine Shakespeare’s bigotry offended Tolstoy. Any reader can spot these “incongruencies.” They don’t make sense. In the first few scenes - Why does Lear believe his vicious daughters? Why does he curse his favourite daughter? Why does Lear banish Kent under pain of death? Why does Lear believe Edgar desires to kill him? Why does Edgar believe Edmond, that his father desires to kill him? Why doesn’t Lear recognize Kent? To a Shakespeare fan, these incongruencies don’t matter, but they mattered to Tolstoy. And we’ve done enough critiques in the Workshop to know that plot or character incongruencies work against suspension of disbelief. That’s for sure. Tolstoy would have taken much more care with their outer and inner worlds. That Tolstoy had stringent criteria for what constitutes art is indisputable, but it’s a disservice to his philosophy to reduce it to “moral dressing.” What a man firmly believes in and advocates is not “dressing,” but, in Tolstoy’s case, the result of a lifetime of study, experience, and reflection. In that, he succeeded. Yes, Tolstoy was intolerant. (I’m not even convinced that intolerance can be categorized as an absolute evil.) As far as perceiving intent, in the end all we have to go by is the writer’s words. And it’s based on those Tolstoy formulates his criticisms. I do not judge Tolstoy for his intolerance, but understand it. His guiding principle, his guiding star, was truth in all things. He didn’t see truth in Shakespeare. We might perch ourselves above Tolstoy and his moralism, but we do not live in a culture of injustice, lacking in human rights, as Tolstoy did. We do not really know the oppressions and persecutions he witnessed in 19th century Russia. He witnessed a lot of wrongs in the social and political structure of Russia in those times, and hoped that moral and religious progress in humans could make things better. At the same time, he wanted plot and character to make sense!
The motto of the Museum of Bad Art (Boston) is – art too bad to be ignored. In their collection is a painting by Anonymous, Charlie and Sheba, shown below. What makes “bad” art good? How does it inspire? Why does it catch our imagination? What does it do for us? And in the writing world, there are “bad” best sellers, like the novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which begins: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”
I have just discovered that I put in the wrong link for Charlie and Sheba. It has been corrected. So, no reaction to Charlie and Sheba? As soon as I saw it, I loved it. I'm not sure why.
Lol. I found it underwhelming, but didn't want to be a hater about someone's amateur painting. It felt like punching down. I'll throw sand at Voice of Fire all day, of course, because of its surrounding context and expectation vs yield. Charlie and Sheba is simply a cute painting. I don't feel anything more profound than observing some happy doggos out in the park. The cultural need to lampshade it as a 'bad' painting/art is interesting. I don't know. I'd be fine with just calling it art or a painting. I don't feel the need to preemptively advertise a magnitude of quality. As-is context is more than enough.
If it held my interest for longer than a second, it's not "bad art." In this case, found myself looking at the eyes of the dogs, and felt a connection there. Everything else is unremarkable. It just exists to fill the space, nothing more. But I could say the same thing about many art forms.. a nugget of gold in an otherwise unproductive stream.
Good way to put it. And those dogs held my interest. If nothing else, they show the love their master had for them - that he would take the time to paint them, and put all his care and effort into it, thought he might lack technical skills.
I find it fascinating that people will look at this painting and just assume it is the work of an amateur while the artist themselves are unknown. I think of people like Flork who time and time again prove they are competent at creating traditionally "good" art but intentionally create "bad" art as part of their branding, style, and theme. When done with intent, there is a lot of beauty to be found in non-traditional--or even amateur appearing--styles. I look at Charlie and Sheba and I see a lot of characterizing of the individual dogs, I feel like I get a sense of their personalities in the expressions on their faces alone. I also feel like the lighting works well in this piece's favor and the obviously impressionist inspired brush strokes. This reads intentionally "bad" to me and I love it for that. But perhaps I'm just as bad as those assuming the artist is an amateur by doing the opposite, who knows.
