What Is Art? · Chapter
XVII explained
Tolstoy argues that art is one of two organs of human progress, alongside words, for interchanging feelings.
What happens
Tolstoy argues that art is one of two organs of human progress, alongside words, for interchanging feelings. He contends that in modern society, the organ of art has been perverted, depriving the upper classes of true art and replacing it with counterfeits that amuse and corrupt. This perversion leads to enormous waste of human labor and lives on harmful artistic productions, supports the idle rich by masking the emptiness of their lives, and confuses peasants and children who see artists rewarded more than saints or heroes. Tolstoy concludes that existing art hinders goodness and calls for understanding the error to seek escape.
Themes in this chapter
Perversion of Art by Professionalism and Gain
Tolstoy argues that professional artists produce counterfeit art for profit, wasting human lives and labor, and that this perversion harms society.
Infection Theory of Art
The chapter emphasizes that true art transmits feelings from man to man, but perverted art deprives people of the capacity to be infected by genuine works.
True Art vs. Counterfeit Art
Tolstoy contrasts true art, which improves humanity, with counterfeit art that amuses, corrupts, and replaces genuine artistic experience.
Characters to notice
- Leo Tolstoy
Author and narrator, presenting his critique of the perversion of art in society.
- Charles Baudelaire
Cited as an example of a poet whose works delight people of the time but are part of counterfeit art.
- Paul Verlaine
Mentioned alongside Baudelaire as a poet appreciated by modern society but representing perverted art.
- Maurice Maeterlinck
Listed as a poet whose works are mistakenly valued as high art in contemporary society.
- Richard Wagner
Cited as a composer whose music is admired but contributes to the perversion of art.
- Alexander Pushkin
Referenced in the context of peasants questioning why he was honored with a monument and cheap edition of his works.
Key passages
“Art is one of two organs of human progress. By words man interchanges thoughts, by the forms of art he interchanges feelings, and this with all men, not only of the present time, but also of the past and the future.”
Art, like language, is a fundamental tool for human advancement: words exchange ideas, while art exchanges emotions across all people, across time.
Tolstoy establishes art as a vital organ of communication and progress.
“All the best that has been done in art by man remains strange to people who lack the capacity to be infected by art, and is replaced either by spurious counterfeits of art or by insignificant art, which they mistake for real art.”
People who have lost the ability to be moved by true art cannot appreciate the greatest artistic achievements, and instead accept fake or trivial art as genuine.
Highlights the consequence of perverted art: loss of access to true artistic experience.
“It is terrible to consider with what intensity, and amid what privations, millions of people […] labour for ten, twelve, or fourteen hours on end, and even at night, setting the type for pseudo-artistic books which spread vice among mankind, or working for theatres, concerts, exhibitions, and picture galleries, which, for the most part, also serve vice.”
It is horrifying that countless people work exhausting hours producing pseudo-art that promotes vice, rather than benefiting humanity.
Critique of the enormous human cost of producing counterfeit art.
“So that, what in our society is called art not only does not conduce to the progress of mankind, but, more than almost anything else, hinders the attainment of goodness in our lives.”
Thus, the art of our society does not help humanity progress; instead, it is a major obstacle to living good lives.
Tolstoy's central condemnation of contemporary art as harmful.
“Happily, no one has to face this question, and no one need adopt either solution. All that man can do, and that we […] can and should do, is to understand the error we are involved in, and not harden our hearts in it but seek for a way of escape.”
Fortunately, we are not forced to choose between all art and no art; instead, we must recognize our mistake and actively seek a path out of this perversion.
Tolstoy offers a hopeful call to awareness and reform rather than destruction.
