What Is Art? · Chapter
Chapter VI: The Religious Basis of Art and Its Decline explained
Tolstoy argues that the value of art is determined by the religious perception of a society, which defines good and evil.
What happens
Tolstoy argues that the value of art is determined by the religious perception of a society, which defines good and evil. He traces how early Christianity recognized only art that transmitted feelings of love, humility, and renunciation, rejecting pagan art. However, with the state-enforced conversion of nations under Constantine, Charlemagne, and Vladimir, Church Christianity arose, perverting Christ's true teaching by introducing a heavenly hierarchy and image worship. This new religion, though degraded, still provided a basis for true art among the masses. The upper classes, after the Crusades and exposure to classical wisdom, lost faith in Church doctrine but could not accept Christ's moral teaching, as it threatened their social position. Left without a religious guide, they reverted to a pagan criterion of pleasure and beauty, leading to a theory of art based on personal enjoyment.
Themes in this chapter
Religious Perception as the Guide for Art
Tolstoy argues that throughout history, the value of art has been determined by the religious conception of what is good and evil in a society.
True Art vs. Counterfeit Art
The chapter distinguishes true art, which transmits feelings aligned with the highest religious understanding of an age, from counterfeit art based on personal pleasure.
Perversion of Art by Professionalism and Gain
Tolstoy implies that the upper classes, lacking a religious guide, perverted art by using it for personal enjoyment and to maintain their social position.
Characters to notice
- Jesus Christ
Tolstoy contrasts Christ's true teaching of brotherhood, humility, and love with the perverted Church Christianity that arose later.
- Francis of Assisi
Mentioned as a heretic who acknowledged the moral, social teaching of Christ, unlike the upper classes who rejected it.
- Plato
Referenced as having condemned the gross conception of art based on pleasure, which the upper classes later adopted.
- Constantine
Cited as an example of a ruler who ordered wholesale conversion, leading to the rise of Church Christianity.
- Charlemagne
Mentioned alongside Constantine and Vladimir as a ruler who enforced mass conversion, perverting true Christianity.
- Vladimir
Listed as a ruler who ordered wholesale conversion, contributing to the establishment of Church Christianity.
Key passages
“The estimation of the value of art ( i.e. of the feelings it transmits) depends on men’s perception of the meaning of life; depends on what they consider to be the good and the evil of life.”
The worth of art is determined by how people understand life's purpose and what they see as good or evil.
Tolstoy establishes the foundational link between art valuation and religious or philosophical worldview.
“Religions are the exponents of the highest comprehension of life accessible to the best and foremost men at a given time in a given society; a comprehension towards which, inevitably and irresistibly, all the rest of that society must advance.”
Religions represent the most advanced understanding of life available to the leading thinkers of an era, and society inevitably moves toward that understanding.
Tolstoy defines religion as the progressive pinnacle of human insight, guiding societal development.
“The Christianity of the first centuries recognised as productions of good art, only legends, lives of saints, sermons, prayers and hymn-singing, evoking love of Christ, emotion at his life, desire to follow his example, renunciation of worldly life, humility, and the love of others; all productions transmitting feelings of personal enjoyment they considered to be bad, and therefore rejected.”
Early Christianity only considered as good art those works that inspired love for Christ, humility, and renunciation, rejecting any art that promoted personal pleasure.
Tolstoy contrasts early Christian art standards with later perversions.
“This Church Christianity not only did not acknowledge the fundamental and essential positions of true Christianity—the immediate relationship of each man to the Father, the consequent brotherhood and equality of all men, and the substitution of humility and love in place of every kind of violence—but, on the contrary, having set up a heavenly hierarchy similar to the pagan mythology, and having introduced the worship of Christ, of the Virgin, of angels, of apostles, of saints, and of martyrs, and not only of these divinities themselves, but also of their images, it made blind faith in the Church and its ordinances the essential point of its teaching.”
Church Christianity abandoned Christ's core teachings of direct relationship with God, brotherhood, and non-violence, instead creating a pagan-like hierarchy and emphasizing blind faith in the Church.
Tolstoy criticizes the institutional Church for distorting Christ's message.
“So that a time came when Church Christianity ceased to be the general religious doctrine of all Christian people; some—the masses—continued blindly to believe in it, but the upper classes—those in whose hands lay the power and wealth, and therefore the leisure to produce art and the means to stimulate it—ceased to believe in that teaching.”
Eventually, Church Christianity was no longer universally believed; the masses still followed it blindly, but the wealthy and powerful upper classes lost their faith.
Tolstoy identifies the class divide in religious belief as a key factor in the decline of art.
“And, having none, they could have no standard wherewith to estimate what was good and what was bad art but that of personal enjoyment.”
Without any religious belief, the upper classes had no standard for judging art other than their own personal pleasure.
This marks the turning point where art's evaluation shifts from religious to hedonistic criteria.
