# The Substitution of Counterfeits for Art explained — What Is Art?

> Chapter companion for What Is Art? by Leo Tolstoy.

## What happens

Tolstoy argues that the art of the upper classes has become so impoverished in subject-matter and unintelligible in form that it has ceased to be real art and has been replaced by counterfeits. He identifies four methods of producing these imitations: borrowing (using 'poetical' subjects from previous works), imitating (realistic description of details), striking (physiological effects like novelty or horror), and interesting (engaging the reader's curiosity). These counterfeits, he contends, cannot infect the receiver with genuine feeling and are mistaken for art only by those with perverted aesthetic taste.

## Themes in this chapter

### Perversion of Art by Professionalism and Gain

Tolstoy argues that upper-class art arises not from inner impulse but from the demand for amusement and payment, leading to counterfeits.

### True Art vs. Counterfeit Art

The chapter systematically distinguishes real art (infecting with feeling) from four methods of counterfeit: borrowing, imitating, striking, and interesting.

### Infection Theory of Art

Tolstoy reiterates that genuine art transmits feeling from artist to receiver, a process absent in counterfeits.

## Character check-ins

### Leo Tolstoy

Author and critic, analyzing the decline of upper-class art and the rise of counterfeit methods.

### Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Cited as an example of a work (Faust) that, though well-executed, lacks the chief characteristic of art due to borrowing.

## Key lines

> Universal art arises only when some one of the people, having experienced a strong emotion, feels the necessity of transmitting it to others. The art of the rich classes, on the other hand, arises not from the artist’s inner impulse, but chiefly because people of the upper classes demand amusement and pay well for it.

True art originates from an artist's inner need to share a genuine emotion, whereas upper-class art is produced to satisfy the demand for entertainment in exchange for money.

_Contrast between the origin of universal art and the commercial motivation of upper-class art._

> Poetic—means borrowed. All borrowing merely recalls to the reader, spectator, or listener some dim recollection of artistic impressions they have received from previous works of art, and does not infect them with feeling which the artist has himself experienced.

Calling a work 'poetic' actually means it borrows from earlier art, evoking memories of past impressions rather than transmitting a new feeling from the artist.

_Tolstoy's critique of the term 'poetic' as a label for derivative works._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/what_is_art_se/chapters/xi
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- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/what_is_art_se/chapters