What Is Art? · Chapter
XV explained
Tolstoy defines the distinguishing mark of true art as its infectiousness—the ability to unite the receiver with the artist and with others.
What happens
Tolstoy defines the distinguishing mark of true art as its infectiousness—the ability to unite the receiver with the artist and with others. He identifies three conditions that determine the degree of infectiousness: individuality of the feeling, clearness of expression, and, most importantly, sincerity of the artist. The absence of any one condition relegates a work to counterfeit art. He notes that sincerity is always present in peasant art but almost entirely absent in upper-class art, which is driven by covetousness or vanity.
Themes in this chapter
Infection Theory of Art
Tolstoy defines art by its capacity to infect the receiver with the artist's feeling, uniting them in a shared emotional experience. The degree of infectiousness is the sole measure of artistic merit.
Perversion of Art by Professionalism and Gain
Tolstoy contrasts the sincere, infectious peasant art with upper-class art, which is produced for personal gain or vanity and therefore lacks sincerity, the most important condition for true art.
Characters to notice
- Leo Tolstoy
Author and theorist presenting the infection theory of art and the criteria for distinguishing true art from counterfeit.
Key passages
“If a man, without exercising effort and without altering his standpoint, on reading, hearing, or seeing another man’s work, experiences a mental condition which unites him with that man and with other people who also partake of that work of art, then the object evoking that condition is a work of art.”
A work is truly art if it effortlessly creates a shared emotional state between the audience, the artist, and others experiencing it.
Tolstoy's core definition of art based on infectious union.
“The chief peculiarity of this feeling is that the receiver of a true artistic impression is so united to the artist that he feels as if the work were his own and not someone else's—as if what it expresses were just what he had long been wishing to express.”
True art makes the audience feel that the work is an expression of their own inner feelings, as if the artist has given voice to what they always wanted to say.
Describes the intimate identification between receiver and artist in genuine art.
“But most of all is the degree of infectiousness of art increased by the degree of sincerity in the artist. As soon as the spectator, hearer, or reader feels that the artist is infected by his own production, and writes, sings, or plays for himself and not merely to act on others, this mental condition of the artist infects the receiver.”
The most powerful factor in art's infectiousness is the artist's sincerity—when the artist creates out of inner necessity rather than to impress others, the audience is most deeply moved.
Sincerity as the paramount condition for true art.