Exercise 1.
"Art in the cultural system"
1. Introduction.
2. Art as a specific form of reflection of reality
3. Classification of arts
5. Main stylistic trends in artistic culture late XIX- XX centuries
6. Modern directions and stylistic features in artistic culture
7. References
Introduction
Art is a form of culture associated with the subject’s ability to aesthetically, practically and spiritually master the world; special side public consciousness And human activity, which is a reflection of reality in artistic images; one of the most important ways of aesthetic understanding objective reality, its reproduction in a figurative and symbolic manner while relying on resources creative imagination; a specific means of a person’s holistic self-affirmation of his essence, a way of forming the “human” in a person.
Character traits art: it serves as a powerful means of communication between people; associated with experiences and emotions; presupposes predominantly sensory perception and certainly subjective perception and vision of reality; it is characterized by imagery and creativity.
Social features art.
Cognitive (epistemological) function. Reflecting reality, art is one of the ways to understand the spiritual world of people, the psychology of classes, nations, individuals and public relations. The specificity of this function of art is in addressing inner world man, the desire to penetrate into the sphere of the innermost spirituality and moral motives of the individual.
The axiological function of art is to assess its impact on the individual in the context of defining ideals (or negating certain paradigms), i.e. generalized ideas of perfection spiritual development, about that normative model, the orientation towards and the desire for which is set by the artist as a representative of society.
Communication function. Generalizing and concentrating the diverse experience of people’s life activities different eras, countries and generations, expressing their feelings, taste, ideal, views on the world, their worldview and worldview, art is one of the universal means of communication, communication between people, enriching the spiritual world of an individual with the experience of all humanity. Classic works unite cultures and eras, expand the horizons of the human worldview. “Art, all art,” wrote L. N. Tolstoy, “in itself has the property of uniting people. All art does what people perceive the feeling conveyed by the artist and, secondly, with all people who received the same impression ".
The hedonistic function lies in the fact that true art brings pleasure to people and spiritualizes them.
Aesthetic function. By its nature, art is highest form mastering the world “according to the laws of beauty.” It, in fact, arose as a reflection of reality in its aesthetic originality. Expressing aesthetic consciousness and influencing people, forming an aesthetic worldview, and through it the whole spiritual world personality.
Heuristic function. Creation work of art- this is the experience of creativity - the concentration of a person’s creative powers, his fantasy and imagination, the culture of feelings and the height of ideals, the depth of thoughts and skill. Mastering artistic values - too creative activity. Art itself carries within itself the amazing ability to awaken thoughts and feelings inherent in a work of art, and the very ability to create in a universal manifestation. The influence of art does not disappear with the cessation of direct contact with a work of art: productive emotional and mental energy is protected, as it were, “in reserve”, and is included in the stable basis of the personality.
Educational function. Art expresses the entire system of human relations to the world - norms and ideals of freedom, truth, goodness, justice and beauty. The viewer’s holistic, active perception of a work of art is co-creation; it acts as a way of the intellectual and emotional spheres of consciousness in their harmonious interaction. This is the purpose of the educational and praxeological (activity) role of art.
The laws of the functioning of art include the following features: the development of art is not progressive in nature, it comes in spurts; works of art always express the artist’s subjective vision of the world and have a subjective assessment on the part of the reader, viewer, listener; artistic masterpieces timeless and relatively independent of changing group and national tastes; art is democratic (it influences people regardless of their education and intelligence, and does not recognize any social barriers); genuine art, as a rule, is humanistically oriented; interaction of tradition and innovation.
Thus, art is a specific type of spiritual activity of people, which is characterized by a creative, sensory perception of the surrounding world in artistic and figurative forms.
Art is a specific and fairly autonomous part of culture. It is called upon to “reveal the truth in sensuous form” (Hegel); “to correct nature” (Voltaire); “to help people understand life more deeply and love it more” (R. Kent); "illuminate with the light of the depths human soul" (R. Schumann); not just reflect reality, but “reflect, denying or blessing” (V. G. Korolenko).
Art is a form of culture associated with the subject’s ability to aesthetically, practically and spiritually master the world; a special aspect of social consciousness and human activity, which is a reflection of reality in artistic images; one of the most important ways of aesthetic understanding of objective reality, its reproduction in a figurative and symbolic key, relying on the resources of creative imagination; a specific means of a person’s holistic self-affirmation of his essence, a way of forming the “human” in a person.
Art is an “image”, an image of the world and a person, formed in the mind of the artist and expressed by him in words, sounds, colors, form; art - artistic creativity generally.
Characteristic features of art: it serves as a powerful means of communication between people; associated with experiences and emotions; presupposes predominantly sensory perception and certainly subjective perception and vision of reality; it is characterized by imagery and creativity.
Social functions of art.
Cognitive (epistemological) function. Reflecting reality, art is one of the ways to understand the spiritual world of people, the psychology of classes, nations, individuals and social relations. The specificity of this function of art is in addressing the inner world of a person, the desire to penetrate into the sphere of the innermost spirituality and moral motives of the individual.
The axiological function of art is to assess its impact on the individual in the context of defining ideals (or the negation of certain paradigms), i.e., generalized ideas about the perfection of spiritual development, about the normative model, the orientation towards and the desire for which is set by the artist as a representative of society.
Communication function. Summarizing and concentrating the diverse life experiences of people of different eras, countries and generations, expressing their feelings, taste, ideal, views on the world, their attitude and worldview, art is one of the universal means of communication, communication between people, enriching the spiritual world of an individual experience of all mankind. Classic works unite cultures and eras, expanding the horizons of the human worldview. “Art, all art,” wrote L. N. Tolstoy, “in itself has the property of uniting people. All art does what people perceive the feeling conveyed by the artist and, secondly, with all people who received the same impression ".
The hedonistic function lies in the fact that true art brings pleasure to people and spiritualizes them.
Aesthetic function. By its nature, art is the highest form of exploration of the world “according to the laws of beauty.” It, in fact, arose as a reflection of reality in its aesthetic originality. Expressing aesthetic consciousness and influencing people, forming an aesthetic worldview, and through it the entire spiritual world of the individual.
Heuristic function. The creation of a work of art is an experience of creativity - the concentration of a person’s creative powers, his fantasy and imagination, the culture of feelings and the height of ideals, the depth of thoughts and skill. Mastering artistic values is also a creative activity. Art itself carries within itself the amazing ability to awaken thoughts and feelings inherent in a work of art, and the very ability to create in a universal manifestation. The influence of art does not disappear with the cessation of direct contact with a work of art: productive emotional and mental energy is protected, as it were, “in reserve”, and is included in the stable basis of the personality.
Educational function. Art expresses the entire system of human relations to the world - norms and ideals of freedom, truth, goodness, justice and beauty. The viewer’s holistic, active perception of a work of art is co-creation; it acts as a way of the intellectual and emotional spheres of consciousness in their harmonious interaction. This is the purpose of the educational and praxeological (activity) role of art.
The laws of the functioning of art include the following features: the development of art is not progressive in nature, it comes in spurts; works of art always express the artist’s subjective vision of the world and have a subjective assessment on the part of the reader, viewer, listener; artistic masterpieces are timeless and relatively independent of changing group and national tastes; art is democratic (it influences people regardless of their education and intelligence, and does not recognize any social barriers); true art, as a rule, is humanistically oriented; interaction of tradition and innovation.
Thus, art is a specific type of spiritual activity of people, which is characterized by a creative, sensory perception of the surrounding world in artistic and figurative forms.
Plan.
Artistic culture and art.
Functions and types of art.
Directions, trends and styles of art.
Topic 4.1. Artistic culture and art.
Art culture- these are perfect art activities that meet the standards accepted in society and contribute to its functioning and development.
Artistic culture is the activities of a society, a group, an individual art, about it And in connection with him. The first activity is divided into the creation of art, which together with performing skills is often called artistic creativity, and the consumption of it. The second activity consists of creating, learning and disseminating information about art. The third consists primarily in the functional use of art, for example, in the artistic arrangement of everyday life and providing artistic influence on various areas of life. Consequently, artistic culture is not limited to the practice of art and is not limited to artistic activity. Art is just its core, central part. Important activities is the assimilation of various information about art, which enlightens people about it, makes them artistically erudite, and seriously helps them in perceiving art.
Usually people who only know about art are not considered artistically cultured. But can they be denied this? Moreover, there really are a lot of them. I think not. But as for the completeness of their artistic culture, it certainly turns out to be limited. This arises from the difference between the activities of art, including its consumption, and the activities related to art, which consist in obtaining information about art and exchanging it with other people. The first is carried out in order to experience a special experience - aesthetic pleasure, and the second - for the sake of replenishing knowledge about art and better understanding it.
The peculiarity of artistic culture, its difference from other cultures, is determined by the specifics of art. The latter is a great simulacrum - an imitation of reality. However, unlike other simulacra, art appears not as an imitation of false models, ersatz, but as a result of such a doubling of reality, which carries about it artistic truth. Therefore, the standards of artistic activity are special; they require people to stay not in a really existing world, but in an artistically depicted world, in which simulative creative thinking and corresponding actions are necessary.
Artistic culture is not only professional, but also amateur artistic activity of people, which they indulge in in their free time. Therefore, the subjects of artistic culture are not only those who professionally engage in art, but also all people who amateurishly produce and consume it.
Individual people’s artistic culture is not their own, but is the result of their familiarization with one of the artistic cultures existing in society. This is expressed in the presence of social, group artistic views in a person. A person’s choice of artistic culture is rarely related to his social affiliation; it is determined more by the characteristics of his artistic taste. His acceptance of artistic culture leaves room for its individual development. Great importance individual vision of art, often with a claim to one’s own artistic culture, has to create and perform artistic works. To a certain extent, this applies to all art consumption.
It is important to emphasize that in all its manifestations, artistic culture appears as an activity carried out according to the standards existing in society and groups. This primarily applies to artistic creativity. The criterion for cultural consumption of art is people’s comprehension of artistic criticism and the degree of familiarization with it.
Since artistic culture includes V itself in pursuit of art and in connection with it, its standards are also those that prescribe their exemplary implementation.
Art is one of the most important spheres of culture, and unlike other spheres of activity (occupation, profession, position, etc.) it is universally significant, without it it is impossible to imagine people’s lives. The beginnings of artistic activity are noted in primitive society, long before the advent of science and philosophy. And, despite the antiquity of art, its irreplaceable role in human life, the long history of aesthetics, the problem of the essence and specificity of art still remains largely unresolved. What is the secret of art and why is it difficult to give strictly scientific definition his? The point, first of all, is that art does not lend itself to logical formalization; attempts to identify its abstract essence always ended in either approximation or failure.
We can distinguish three different meanings of this word, closely related to each other, but differing in scope and content. In its broadest sense, the concept of “art” (and this is, apparently, its most ancient application) means any skill, skillfully, technically performed activity, the result of which is artificial in comparison with the natural. It is this meaning that follows from the ancient Greek word “techne” - art, skill.
The second, narrower meaning of the word “art” is creativity according to the laws of beauty. This kind of creativity belongs to to a wide circle activities: the creation of useful things, machines, this should also include the design and organization of public and personal life, the culture of everyday behavior, communication between people, etc. Nowadays, creativity operates successfully according to the laws of beauty in various areas of design. A special type of social activity is artistic creativity itself, the products of which are special spiritual aesthetic values - this is the third and narrowest meaning of the word “art”. This will be the subject of further consideration.
Art– a form of culture associated with the subject’s ability to aesthetically, practically and spiritually master the world; a special aspect of social consciousness and human activity, which is a reflection of reality in artistic images; one of the most important ways of aesthetic understanding of objective reality, its reproduction in a figurative and symbolic key, relying on the resources of creative imagination; a specific means of a person’s holistic self-affirmation of his essence, a way of forming the “human” in a person.
Characteristic features of art:
serves as a powerful means of communication between people;
associated with experiences and emotions;
presupposes predominantly sensory perception and certainly subjective perception and vision of reality;
it is characterized by imagery and creativity.
Modern science has established that art originated in the Upper Paleolithic era, i.e. about 30-40 thousand years BC The polyphony of art also implies a variety of points of view on the reasons for its origin.
Religious theory. In accordance with it, beauty is one of the names of God, and art is a concrete sensory expression of the divine idea. The origin of art is associated with the manifestation of the divine principle.
Game theory (G. Spencer, K. Bucher, W. Fritsche, F. Schiller). The point is that art is considered a game in itself, devoid of any content. Due to the fact that play is a biological phenomenon inherent in all animals, art is declared one of the natural phenomena. Since play is older than labor, art is older than the production of useful objects. Its main goal is pleasure, enjoyment.
Erotic (N. Nardau, K. Lange, 3. Freud, etc.). Proponents of this point of view believed that art arises as a means of attracting representatives of one sex to individuals of the other sex. For example, one of the most ancient forms of art - decoration - was created in order to produce the greatest sexual desire.
Theory of imitation (Democritus, Aristotle, etc.). Here an attempt is expressed to connect the reason for the emergence of art with the social purpose of man. Aristotle saw in art an “imitation” of mother nature and one of the means of “purifying” a person’s feelings, raising him to be beautiful, noble, and courageous (“Poetics”). He believed that the reasons for the emergence of art were the natural inclinations of man to imitate and imitate nature.
Functions and types of art
Cognitive (epistemological) function. Reflecting reality, art is one of the ways to understand the spiritual world of people, the psychology of classes, nations, individuals and social relations. The specificity of this function of art is in its appeal to the inner world of a person, the desire to penetrate into the sphere of the innermost spirituality and moral motives of the individual.
The axiological function of art is to assess its impact on the individual in the context of defining ideals (or negating certain paradigms), i.e. generalized ideas about the perfection of spiritual development, about that normative model, the orientation towards and the desire for which is set by the artist as a representative of society.
Communication function. Summarizing and concentrating the diverse life experiences of people of different eras, countries and generations, expressing their feelings, taste, ideal, views on the world, their attitude and worldview, art is one of the universal means of communication, communication between people, enriching the spiritual world of an individual experience of all mankind. Classic works unite cultures and eras, expanding the horizons of the human worldview. “Art, all art,” wrote L.N. Tolstoy, - in itself has the ability to unite people. What all art does is that people who perceive the feeling conveyed by the artist are united in soul, firstly, with the artist and, secondly, with all the people who received the same impression.”
The hedonistic function lies in the fact that true art brings people pleasure (and rejection of evil) and spiritualizes them.
Aesthetic function. By its nature, art is the highest form of exploration of the world “according to the laws of beauty.” It, in fact, arose as a reflection of reality in its aesthetic originality, expressing aesthetic consciousness and impact on people, forming an aesthetic worldview, and through it the entire spiritual world of the individual.
Heuristic function. The creation of a work of art is an experience of creativity - the concentration of a person’s creative powers, his fantasy and imagination, the culture of feelings and the height of ideals, the depth of thoughts and skill. Mastering artistic values is also a creative activity. Art itself carries within itself the amazing ability to awaken thoughts and feelings inherent in a work of art, and the very ability to be creative in its universal manifestation. The influence of art does not disappear with the cessation of direct contact with a work of art: productive emotional and mental energy is protected, as it were, “in reserve”, and is included in the stable basis of the personality.
Educational function. Art expresses the entire system of human relations to the world - norms and ideals of freedom, truth, goodness, justice and beauty. The viewer’s holistic, active perception of a work of art is co-creation; it acts as a way of the intellectual and emotional spheres of consciousness in their harmonious interaction. This is the purpose of the educational and praxeological (activity) role of art.
Patterns of functioning of art:
the development of art is not progressive; it comes in spurts;
works of art always express the artist’s subjective vision of the world and have a subjective assessment on the part of the reader, viewer, listener;
artistic masterpieces are timeless and relatively independent of changing group and national tastes;
art is democratic (it influences people regardless of their education and intelligence, and does not recognize any social barriers);
true art, as a rule, is humanistically oriented;
interaction of tradition and innovation.
Thus, art is a specific type of spiritual activity of people, which is characterized by a creative, sensory perception of the surrounding world in artistic and figurative forms.
Art, as the most important part of culture, finds its expression in the limitless variety of specific types of artistic creativity, the number and complexity of which - from rock painting or primitive dance to the grandiose "show" or film series of our time - is steadily increasing as the aesthetic consciousness of mankind grows.
Principles of classification of art forms.
First of all, among the types of art there are: fine arts (painting, graphics, sculpture, art photography
non-figurative (music, architecture, decorative applied arts, choreography).
The difference between them is that the fine arts reproduce life in a form similar to it (depict it), while the non-fine arts directly convey the inner state of people’s spirit, their experiences, feelings, moods through a form that is “dissimilar” directly to the object of display.
Fine arts turn to reality as the source of formation of the human world, non-fine arts - to the results of the influence of reality on the spiritual world of the individual (people's worldview, their feelings, experiences, etc.).
It is very important to divide the arts into:
static (spatial) and
dynamic (temporary).
The first include painting, graphics, sculpture, architecture, decorative and applied arts, artistic photography; the second - literature, music, dance. Spatial arts with enormous power reproduce the visible beauty of reality, the harmony of space, are able to draw attention to individual aspects of the reflected world, to every detail of the work itself, which makes them indispensable in aesthetic education and teaching beauty. At the same time, they are powerless to directly convey the changes in life, its course. This is successfully done by temporary arts, capable of recreating both the course of events (literature) and the development of human feelings (music, choreography).
Not all types of art can be “classified” as one or another clearly defined type. On the basis of the synthesis of simple arts, synthetic arts grow. These include theater, cinema, and television. They, as a rule, combine the features of fine and non-visual arts, spatial and temporal, so that they are sometimes even classified as a special group of spatio-temporal arts.
According to the method of practical artistic development of material, art can be divided into types that use natural materials - marble, granite, wood, metal, paint, etc. (architecture, painting, graphics, sculpture, decorative and applied arts), sound (music), the word (primarily fiction), as well as the arts in which the “material” is the person himself (theater, cinema, television, stage, circus). A special place here is occupied by the word, the use of which is widely used in a variety of forms of art.
Let us also note the division of arts into utilitarian (applied) and non-utilitarian (fine; sometimes they are also called pure). In works of utilitarian arts (architecture, decorative and applied arts), in recent decades there has been an increasingly widespread utilitarian use of some types of fine arts (music in industry and in medicine, painting in medicine), their intended purpose for practical material purposes and their own aesthetic purpose are organically intertwined focus.
Traditional aesthetics divides works of art, primarily based on their relationship to the categories of space and time, into two large groups: spatial and temporal. In accordance with this criterion, the first group includes such types of artistic creativity in which no movement is detected: architecture, sculpture, painting, graphics, etc. The second includes music, ballet, theater, and other types of “entertainment” art. However, it is easy to notice that not all types of art are subject to such a “rigid” classification, many of which, if not all, could be called spatiotemporal.
The classification itself distinguishes types of art - fine, musical, “synthetic”, “technical”, arts and crafts, etc.
Fine art affects a person visually, i.e. through visual perception. Works of fine art, as a rule, have an objective (material) form and do not change in time and space (except in cases of damage and destruction). Painting, sculpture, graphics, monumental art, as well as, to a large extent, decorative and applied art belong to spatial art.
Synthetic arts are types of artistic creativity that represent an organic fusion or a relatively free combination of different types of arts, forming a qualitatively new and unified aesthetic whole.
The “technical arts” in developed forms arose relatively recently; This is a kind of symbiosis of art and technology. Typical example– the creation of “light music”, the essence of which is the desire to merge into some organic synthesis the “melody” of changing light and color effects, on the one hand, and the melody itself, on the other.
Decorative and applied art is perhaps one of the most ancient. Its name comes from Lat. “desogo” - I decorate, and the definition of “applied” contains the idea that it serves the practical needs of a person, while simultaneously satisfying his individual aesthetic needs.
A special area of decorative and applied art is all its manifestations that use nature itself as a source material, as if “connected” to the process of aestheticization of the human environment. “It is necessary to take under protection not only architectural monuments, but also entire landscapes, as is done, for example, in Scotland, where the entire “view” to the horizon is preserved,” wrote D.S. Likhachev. “Outstanding landscapes should be taken into account and preserved as cultural monuments (human and natural).”
Kinds of art- these are historically established, stable forms of creative activity that have the ability to artistically realize the content of life and differ in the methods of its material embodiment. Art exists and develops as a system of interconnected types, the diversity of which is due to the versatility of the real world displayed in the process of artistic creation.
Each type of art has its own specific arsenal of visual and expressive means and techniques.
Qualitative characteristics of art forms.
Architecture– the formation of reality according to the laws of beauty when creating buildings and structures designed to serve human needs for housing and public spaces. Architecture is a type of art whose purpose is to create structures and buildings necessary for the life and activities of people. It performs not only an aesthetic function in people’s lives, but also a practical one. Architecture as an art form is static and spatial. The artistic image here is created in a non-representational way. It displays certain ideas, moods and desires using the relationship of scales, masses, shapes, colors, connections with the surrounding landscape, that is, using specifically expressive means.
Applied arts- these are things that surround and serve us, create our life and comfort, things made not only as useful, but also as beautiful, having style and artistic image, which expresses their purpose and carries generalized information about the type of life, about the era, about the worldview of the people. The aesthetic impact of applied art is daily, hourly, every minute. Works of applied art can rise to the heights of art.
decorative arts– aesthetic development of the environment surrounding a person, artistic design of the “second nature” created by man: buildings, structures, premises, squares, streets, roads. This art invades everyday life, creating beauty and convenience in and around residential and public spaces. Works of decorative art can be a door handle and fence, stained glass window glass and a lamp, which enter into synthesis with architecture.
Painting– depiction on a plane of pictures of the real world, transformed by the artist’s creative imagination; isolating the elementary and most popular aesthetic sense - the sense of color - into a special sphere and turning it into one of the means of artistic exploration of the world.
Graphic arts is based on a monochromatic drawing and uses a contour line as the main means of representation: a dot, a stroke, a spot. Depending on its purpose, it is divided into easel and applied printing: engraving, lithography, etching, caricature, etc.
Sculpture- spatial-visual art, mastering the world in plastic images that are imprinted in materials capable of conveying the vital appearance of phenomena. The sculpture reproduces reality in three-dimensional forms. The main materials are: stone, bronze, marble, wood. According to its content, it is divided into monumental, easel, and small-form sculpture. According to the shape of the image, they are distinguished: three-dimensional three-dimensional sculpture, relief-convex images on a plane. The relief, in turn, is divided into bas-relief, high relief, and counter-relief. Basically, all genres of sculpture developed during the period of antiquity. In our time, the number of materials suitable for sculpture has expanded: works of steel, concrete, and plastic have appeared.
Literature- a written form of word art. With the help of words she creates a real living being. Literary works are divided into three types: epic, lyric, drama. Epic literature includes the genres of novel, story, short story, and essay. Lyrical works include poetic genres: elegy, sonnet, ode, madrigal, poem. Drama is meant to be performed on stage. Dramatic genres include: drama, tragedy, comedy, farce, tragicomedy, etc. In these works, the plot is revealed through dialogues and monologues. The main expressive and figurative means of literature is the word. The word is an expressive means and mental form of literature, the symbolic basis of its imagery. Imagery is embedded in the very basis of language, which is created by the people, absorbs all their experience and becomes a form of thinking.
Theater- an art form that artistically explores the world through dramatic action performed by actors in front of the audience. Theater is a special type of collective creativity that unites the efforts of a playwright, director, artist, composer, and actors. The idea of the performance is embodied through the actor. The actor includes in the action and gives theatricality to everything that is on stage. The scenery creates on stage the interior of a room, a landscape, a view of a city street, but all this will remain a dead prop if the actor does not spiritualize things with stage behavior.
Music– an art that consolidates and develops the capabilities of non-verbal audio communication associated with human speech. Music develops its own language based on generalization and processing of intonations of human speech. The basis of music is intonation. The structure of music is rhythm and harmony, which when combined give a melody. Volume, timbre, tempo, rhythm and other elements also play a significant, meaning-forming role in music.
Choreography– the art of dance, the echo of music.
Dance- a melodic and rhythmic sound that has become a melodic and rhythmic movement of the human body, revealing the characters of people, their feelings and thoughts about the world. Emotional condition a person is expressed not only in his voice, but also in his gestures and the nature of his movements. Even a person’s gait can be swift, joyful, or sad.
Circus– the art of acrobatics, balancing act, gymnastics, pantomime, juggling, magic tricks, clowning, musical eccentricity, horse riding, animal training. The circus is not a record holder, but an image of a person demonstrating his highest capabilities, solving super-tasks, creating in accordance with the super-task, according to the laws of eccentricity.
Photographic art– creation by chemical, technical and optical means of a visual image of documentary significance, artistically expressive and authentically capturing in a frozen image an essential moment of reality. Documentation is the “golden guarantee” of a photo that forever captures a fact of life.
Movie- the art of visual moving images created on the basis of the achievements of modern chemistry and optics, an art that has acquired its own language, widely embracing life in all its aesthetic richness and synthetically absorbing the experience of other types of art.
A television– a means of mass video information capable of transmitting aesthetically processed impressions of existence over a distance; the new kind art, providing intimacy, homely perception, the effect of the viewer’s presence (the “immediate” effect), chronicle and documentary nature of artistic information.
Art forms are closely related to each other and mutually influence each other. Even such seemingly distant forms of art as cinema and architecture, music and painting are interconnected. Art forms have a direct influence on each other. Even in ancient times, architecture interacted with monumental sculpture, painting, mosaics, and icons.
By interacting with each other, different types of art solve a common problem - the task aesthetic education people, the formation and development of their spiritual world.
It is true that this sign is internal and that people who have forgotten about the effect produced by real art and expect something completely different from art - and there is a huge majority of them among our society - may think that that feeling of entertainment and some excitement that they experience counterfeits of art, and there is an aesthetic feeling, and although these people cannot be dissuaded, just as one cannot dissuade a colorblind person from the fact that green color is not red, nevertheless, this sign for people with a feeling that is not perverted and not atrophied in relation to art remains completely definite and clearly distinguishes the feeling produced by art from any other.
main feature This feeling is that the perceiver merges with the artist to such an extent that it seems to him that the object he perceives was made not by someone else, but by himself, and that everything that is expressed by this object is the same thing that was so long ago he already wanted to express. What a true work of art does is that in the mind of the perceiver the division between him and the artist is destroyed, and not only between him and the artist, but also between him and all the people who perceive the same work of art. It is in this liberation of the individual from his separation from other people, from his loneliness, in this merging of the individual with others, that the main attractive force and property of art lies.
If a person experiences this feeling, becomes infected with the state of soul in which the author is, and feels his merging with other people, then the object that causes this state is art; there is no this infection, there is no merging with the author and with those who perceive the work - and there is no art. But not only is contagiousness an undoubted sign of art, the degree of contagiousness is also the only measure of the dignity of art.
The stronger the infection, the better art, as art, not to mention its content, that is, regardless of the dignity of the feelings that it conveys.
Art becomes more or less infectious due to three conditions: 1) due to the greater or lesser specificity of the feeling that is conveyed; 2) due to the greater or lesser clarity of the transfer of this feeling and 3) due to the sincerity of the artist, that is, the greater or lesser strength with which the artist himself experiences the feeling that he conveys.
The more special the feeling conveyed, the stronger its effect on the recipient. The perceiver experiences greater pleasure the more special the state of soul into which he is transferred, and therefore the more willingly and strongly he merges with it.
The clarity of expression of a feeling contributes to contagion, because, merging in his consciousness with the author, the perceiver is the more satisfied, the more clearly expressed is the feeling that, as it seems to him, he has known and experienced for a long time and for which he has now only found expression.
Most of all, the degree of contagiousness of art increases by the degree of sincerity of the artist. As soon as the viewer, listener, reader feels that the artist himself becomes infected with his work and writes, sings, plays for himself, and not just to influence others, such state of mind the artist infects the perceiver, and vice versa: as soon as the viewer, reader, listener feels that the author writes, sings, plays not for his own satisfaction, but for him, for the perceiver, and does not himself feel what he wants to express, then there is a rebuff, and the most special, new feeling, and the most skillful technique not only do not make any impression, but repel.
I am talking about three conditions for the contagiousness and dignity of art, but in essence there is only one last condition, that the artist should feel an inner need to express the feeling he conveys. This condition includes the first, because if the artist is sincere, then he will express the feeling as he perceived it. And since each person is different from the other, then this feeling will be special for every other and the more special the deeper the artist draws it, the more sincere and sincere it is. The same sincerity will force the artist to find a clear expression of the feeling that he wants to convey.
Therefore, this third condition - sincerity - is the most important of the three. This condition is always present in folk art, as a result of which it acts so strongly, and is almost completely absent in our art of the upper classes, constantly produced by artists for their personal, selfish or vain purposes.
These are the three conditions, the presence of which separates art from counterfeits and at the same time determines the dignity of any work of art, regardless of its content.
The absence of one of these conditions means that the work no longer belongs to art, but to fakes of it. If a work does not convey the individual characteristics of the artist’s feelings and is therefore not special, if it is not clearly expressed, or if it did not arise from the internal need of the author, it is not a work of art. If, even to the smallest degree, all three conditions are present, then the work, even if weak, is a work of art.
The presence in various degrees three conditions: specificity, clarity and sincerity, determine the dignity of objects of art as art, regardless of its content. All works of art are distributed in their merit according to the presence to a greater or lesser extent of one, the other, or the third of these conditions. In one, the peculiarity of the conveyed feeling predominates, in the other - clarity of expression, in the third - sincerity, in the fourth sincerity and peculiarity, but lack of clarity, in the fifth - peculiarity and clarity, but less sincerity, etc. in all possible degrees and combinations .
This is how art is separated from non-art and the dignity of art as art is determined regardless of its content, that is, regardless of whether it conveys good or bad feelings.
But what determines good and bad art?
XVI
What determines good and bad art?
Art, together with speech, is one of the tools of communication, and therefore of progress, that is, the movement forward of humanity towards perfection. Speech makes it possible for people of the last living generations to know everything that previous generations and the best learned through experience and reflection. advanced people modernity; art makes it possible for people of the last living generations to experience all those feelings that people have experienced before and that the best progressive people are currently experiencing. And just as the evolution of knowledge occurs, that is, more true, necessary knowledge displaces and replaces erroneous and unnecessary knowledge, so exactly does the evolution of feelings occur through art, displacing lower, less kind and less necessary feelings for the good of people with kinder, more necessary for this good. This is the purpose of art. And therefore, in terms of its content, art is better the more it fulfills this purpose, and the worse it is, the less it fulfills it.
The assessment of feelings, that is, the recognition of certain feelings as more or less good, that is, necessary for the good of people, is accomplished by the religious consciousness of a certain time.
In every given historical time and in every human society there is a higher understanding that the people of this society have only reached, an understanding of the meaning of life, which determines the highest good that this society strives for. This understanding is the religious consciousness of a certain time and society. This religious consciousness is always clearly expressed by some leading people in society and is more or less vividly felt by everyone. Such religious consciousness, corresponding to its expression, always exists in every society. If it seems to us that there is no religious consciousness in society, then it seems to us not because it really does not exist, but because we do not want to see it. And we don’t want to see it often because it exposes our life, which disagrees with it.
Religious consciousness in society is like the direction of a flowing river. If a river flows, then there is a direction in which it flows. If a society lives, then there is a religious consciousness that indicates the direction in which all the people of this society more or less consciously strive.
And therefore, religious consciousness has always been and is in every society. And according to this religious consciousness, the feelings conveyed by art have always been assessed. Only on the basis of this religious consciousness of its time has always stood out from the entire infinitely diverse field of art that which conveys the feelings that realize the religious consciousness of a given time in life. And such art has always been highly valued and encouraged; art that conveys feelings arising from the religious consciousness of previous times, backward, already experienced, has always been condemned and despised. The rest of all art, conveying all the most diverse feelings through which people communicate with each other, was not condemned and was allowed, unless it conveyed feelings that were contrary to religious consciousness. So, for example, the Greeks singled out, approved and encouraged art that conveyed feelings of beauty, strength, courage (Hesiod, Homer, Phidias), and condemned and despised art that conveyed feelings of coarse sensuality, despondency, and effeminacy. Among the Jews, art that conveyed feelings of devotion and obedience to the God of the Jews and his covenants (some parts of the book of Genesis, prophets, psalms) was distinguished and encouraged, and art that conveyed feelings of idolatry (the golden calf) was condemned and despised; all other art - stories, songs, dances, house decorations, utensils, clothing - that was not contrary to religious consciousness was not recognized or discussed at all. This is how art has been regarded in its content always and everywhere, and this is how it should be regarded, because such an attitude towards art follows from the properties of human nature, and these properties do not change.
I know that, according to the widespread opinion of our time, religion is a superstition experienced by humanity, and that therefore it is assumed that in our time there is no religious consciousness common to all people by which art could be assessed. I know that this is a common opinion in the supposedly educated circles of our time. People who do not recognize Christianity in its true sense and therefore come up with all sorts of philosophical and aesthetic theories that hide from them the meaninglessness and depravity of their lives cannot think otherwise. These people intentionally, and sometimes unintentionally, mixing the concepts of the cult of religion with the concept of religious creation, think that by denying the cult, they are thereby denying religious consciousness. But all these attacks on religion and attempts to establish a worldview that is contrary to the religious consciousness of our time most obviously prove the presence of this religious consciousness, denouncing the lives of people who do not agree with it.
If progress is made in humanity, that is, movement forward, then there must inevitably be an indicator of the direction of this movement. And religions have always been such a guide. All history shows that the progress of mankind has not been accomplished except under the guidance of religion. If the progress of mankind cannot occur without the guidance of religion - and progress always occurs, therefore it occurs in our time - then there must be a religion of our time. So, the so-called like it educated people of our time or not, they must recognize the existence of religion, not the religion of a cult - Catholic, Protestant, etc., but religious consciousness, as a necessary leader of progress in our time. If there is a religious consciousness among us, then our art should be assessed on the basis of this religious consciousness; and in exactly the same way, and always and everywhere, art that conveys feelings arising from the religious consciousness of our time must be consciously, highly valued and encouraged, and art that is contrary to this consciousness must be condemned and despised, and not singled out and not All other indifferent art is encouraged.
The religious consciousness of our time, in its most general practical application, is the consciousness that our good, both material and spiritual, and individual and general, and temporary and eternal, lies in the fraternal life of all people, in our loving unity among ourselves. This consciousness is expressed not only by Christ and all the best people past time and is not only repeated in the most diverse forms and from the most diverse sides by the best people of our time, but also serves as the guiding thread of all the complex work of mankind, which consists, on the one hand, in the destruction of physical and moral barriers that hinder the unity of people, and, on the other hand, in establishing those principles common to all people that can and should unite people into one universal brotherhood. On the basis of this consciousness, we must evaluate all the phenomena of our life and, among them, our art, singling out from its entire field that which conveys the feelings arising from this religious consciousness, highly appreciating and encouraging this art and denying that which is contrary this consciousness, and without attributing to the rest of art a meaning that is unusual for it.
The main mistake that people of the upper classes made during the so-called Renaissance - a mistake that we continue now - was not that they stopped appreciating and ascribing meaning to religious art (the people of that time could not attribute meaning to it because, just like the people of the upper classes of our time, they could not believe in what was considered by the majority to be religion), but that in place of this missing religious art they put insignificant art, aimed only at the pleasure of people, that is, they began to highlight , to value and encourage, as religious art, something that in no way deserved this appreciation and encouragement.
One church father said that the main grief of people is not that they do not know God, but that in the place of God they have put something that is not God. It's the same with art. The main misfortune of the people of the upper classes of our time is not yet that they do not have religious art, but that in place of the highest religious art, isolated from everything else, as especially important and valuable, they have singled out the most insignificant, mostly harmful art , which has as its goal the pleasure of some, and therefore, by its exclusivity alone, is already contrary to the Christian principle of universal unity, which constitutes the religious consciousness of our time. In place of religious art, empty and often depraved art has been placed, and this hides from people the need for that true religious art, which must be in life in order to improve it.
It is true that art that satisfies the requirements of the religious consciousness of our time is completely different from previous art, but, despite this dissimilarity, what constitutes the religious art of our time is very clear and definite for a person who does not deliberately hide the truth from himself. In former times, when the highest religious consciousness united only a certain, albeit very large, one among others, society of people: Jews, Athenians, Roman citizens, the feelings conveyed by the art of those times flowed from the desire for power, greatness, glory, prosperity of these societies, and the heroes of art could be people who contributed to this prosperity through force, deceit, cunning, and cruelty (Odysseus, Jacob, David, Samson, Hercules and all the heroes). The religious consciousness of our time does not single out any “one” society of people; on the contrary, it requires the unification of everyone, absolutely all people without exception, and above all other virtues it places brotherly love for all people, and therefore the feelings conveyed by the art of our time are not only cannot coincide with the feelings conveyed by previous art, but must be opposite to them.
Christian, truly Christian art could not be established for a long time and has not yet been established precisely because Christian religious consciousness was not one of those small steps by which humanity gradually advances, but was a huge revolution that, if not yet changed, then inevitably had to change everything people’s understanding of life and the entire internal structure of their lives. It is true that the life of mankind, like that of the individual, moves evenly, but in the midst of this uniform motion there are, as it were, turning points that sharply separate the previous life from the next. Christianity was such a turning point for humanity, at least that is how it should seem to us, living with a Christian consciousness. Christian consciousness gave a different, new direction to all the feelings of people and therefore completely changed both the content and meaning of art. The Greeks could use the art of the Persians and the Romans the art of the Greeks, just as the Jews could use the art of the Egyptians - the basic ideals were the same. The ideal was either the greatness and goodness of the Persians, or the greatness and goodness of the Greeks or Romans. The same art was transferred to other conditions and was suitable for new peoples. But the Christian ideal changed, turned everything upside down so that, as it is said in the Gospel: “what was great before people became an abomination before God.” The ideal was not the greatness of the pharaoh and the Roman emperor, not the beauty of the Greek or the wealth of Phenicia, but humility, chastity, compassion, love. It was not the rich man who became the hero, but the beggar Lazarus; Mary of Egypt not during her beauty, but during her repentance; not acquirers of wealth, but those who distributed it, living not in palaces, but in catacombs and huts, not people ruling over others, but people who do not recognize anyone’s authority except God. AND supreme work art is not a temple of victory with statues of victors, but an image of the human soul, transformed by love in such a way that a tortured and killed person pities and loves his tormentors.
And therefore it is difficult for the people of the Christian world to stop from the inertia of pagan art, with which they have grown together throughout their lives. The content of Christian religious art is so new to them, so unlike the content of previous art, that it seems to them that Christian art is a negation of art, and they desperately cling to the old art. Meanwhile, this old art, in our time no longer having a source in religious consciousness, has lost all its meaning, and we, willy-nilly, must abandon it.
The essence of Christian consciousness is the recognition by each person of his sonship to God and the resulting unity of people with God and among themselves, as stated in the Gospel (John XVII, 21), and therefore the content of Christian art is such feelings that promote the unity of people with God and among ourselves.
The expression: the unity of people with God and among themselves may seem unclear to people accustomed to hearing such frequent abuse of these words, and yet these words have a very clear meaning. These words mean that the Christian unity of people, as opposed to the partial, exclusive unity of only some people, is one that unites all people without exception.
Art, all art in itself, has the ability to connect people. What all art does is that people who perceive the feeling conveyed by the artist are united in soul, firstly, with the artist and, secondly, with all the people who received the same impression. But non-Christian art, connecting some people with each other, by this very connection separates them from other people, so that this particular connection often serves as a source not only of separation, but of hostility towards other people. Such is all patriotic art, with its hymns, poems, monuments; such is all church art, that is, the art of famous cults with their icons, statues, processions, services, temples; Such is the art of war, such is all refined art, actually depraved, accessible only to people who oppress other people, to people of the leisured, wealthy classes. Such art is backward art - not Christian, uniting some people only in order to separate them even more sharply from other people and even put them in a hostile attitude towards other people. Christian art is only that which unites all people without exception - either by the fact that it evokes in people the consciousness of the sameness of their position in relation to God and neighbor, or by the fact that it evokes in people the same feeling, although the simplest, but not contrary to Christianity and characteristic of all people without exception.
Christian good art of our time may not be understood by people due to a lack of its form or due to people's inattention to it, but it must be such that all people can experience the feelings that are conveyed to them. It should be the art of not just one circle of people, not one class, not one nationality, not one religious cult, that is, it should not convey feelings that are accessible only in a certain way well-mannered person, or only a nobleman, a merchant, or only a Russian, a Japanese, or a Catholic, or a Buddhist, etc., but feelings that are accessible to every person. Only such art can be recognized in our time good art and is distinguished from all other art and encouraged.
Christian art, that is, the art of our time, must be catholic in the literal sense of the word, that is, universal, and therefore must unite all people. All people are united by only two kinds of feelings: feelings arising from the consciousness of sonship to God and the brotherhood of people, and the simplest feelings - everyday ones, but those that are accessible to all people without exception, such as feelings of fun, tenderness, cheerfulness, tranquility, etc. Only these two kinds of feelings constitute the subject matter of good art of our time.
And the effect produced by these two types of art that seem so different from each other is one and the same. Feelings arising from the consciousness of sonship to God and the brotherhood of man, such as feelings of firmness in the truth, devotion to the will of God, selflessness, respect for man and love for him, arising from the Christian religious consciousness, and the simplest feelings - a tender or cheerful mood from a song, or from a funny joke that is understandable to all people, or touching story, or a drawing, or a doll - produce the same effect - the loving unity of people. It happens that people, being together, are, if not hostile, then alien to each other in their moods and feelings, and suddenly either a story, or a performance, or a picture, even a building and most often music, like an electric spark, connects all these people, and all these people, instead of the previous fragmentation, often even hostility, feel unity and love for each other. Everyone rejoices that another experiences the same thing as he does, rejoices at the communication that has been established not only between him and all those present, but also between all people now living who will receive the same impression; Moreover, one feels the mysterious joy of afterlife communication with all the people of the past who experienced the same feeling, and the people of the future who will experience it. This is the effect that produces equally both that art that conveys feelings of love for God and neighbor, and everyday art that conveys the simplest feelings common to all people.
The main difference between the valuation of the art of our time and the previous one is that the art of our time, that is, Christian art, based on religious consciousness that requires the unity of people, excludes from the realm of good art in content everything that conveys exceptional feelings that do not unite , and dividing people, classifying such art as art that is bad in content, but, on the contrary, includes in the area of art that is good in content a department that was not previously recognized as worthy of highlighting and respect of world art, conveying even the most insignificant, simple feelings, but those that are accessible to all people without exception and which therefore connect them.
Such art cannot but be recognized as good in our time because it achieves the very goal that the religious Christian consciousness of our time sets for humanity.
Christian art either evokes in people those feelings that, through love for God and neighbor, draw them to greater and greater unity, make them ready and capable of such unity, or it evokes in them those feelings that show them what they already united by the unity of the joys and sorrows of life. And therefore, Christian art of our time can be and is of two kinds: 1) art that conveys feelings arising from the religious consciousness of man’s position in the world, in relation to God and neighbor, religious art, and 2) art that conveys the simplest everyday feelings, those that are accessible to all people around the world - world art. Only these two kinds of art can be considered good art in our time.
The first type of religious art, conveying both positive feelings of love for God and neighbor, and negative ones - indignation, horror at the violation of love, manifests itself mainly in the form of words and partly in painting and sculpture; the second kind - universal art, conveying feelings accessible to everyone, is manifested in words, and in painting, and in sculpture, and in dancing, and in architecture, and mainly in music.
If I were asked to point to examples in the new art of each of these types of art, then as examples of the highest, resulting from the love of God and neighbor, religious art in the field of literature, I would point to Schiller’s “The Thieves”; of the newest - on "Les pauvres gens" by V. Hugo and his "Miserables" ["Poor People" by V. Hugo and his "Les Miserables" (French)], on the stories, short stories, novels of Dickens: "Tale of two cities" , "Chimes" ["A Tale of Two Cities", "Bells" (English)], etc., on "Uncle Tom's Cabin", on Dostoevsky, mainly his " Dead House", on "Adam Bede" by George Eliot.
In the painting of modern times, there are almost no works of this kind that directly convey Christian feelings of love for God and neighbor, strange as it may seem, there are almost no works, especially among famous painters. There are gospel paintings, and there are a lot of them, but they all convey historical event with great wealth of detail, but they do not and cannot convey that religious feeling that the authors do not have. There are many paintings depicting personal feelings different people, but there are very few paintings that convey feats of self-sacrifice and Christian love, and then mainly among little-known painters and not in finished paintings, but most often in drawings. This is Kramskoy’s drawing, worth many of his paintings, depicting a living room with a balcony, past which returning troops solemnly pass. On the balcony there is a nurse with a child and a boy. They admire the procession of troops. And the mother, covering her face with a scarf, sobbed, fell to the back of the sofa. This is the same picture of Langley that I mentioned; the same picture depicts a rescue boat rushing to the rescue of a sinking steamship in a strong storm, French painter Morlon. There are still paintings approaching this type, depicting the working toiler with respect and love. Such are Millet’s paintings, especially his drawing of a resting digger; in the same kind of paintings by Jules Breton, Lhermitte, Defregger and others. Examples in the field of painting of works that evoke indignation, horror at the violation of love for God and neighbor, can be the painting by Ge - the court, the painting by Liezen Mayer - the signature of the death sentence. There are very few paintings of this kind. Concerns about technology and beauty for the most part obscure the feeling. So, for example, the painting “Pollice verso” [Here: “Finish him” (lat.)] does not so much express a feeling of horror at what is happening, but a passion for beauty. spectacles.
It is even more difficult to point out in the new art of the upper classes examples of the second kind, good universal everyday art, especially in verbal art and music. If there are works that, in terms of their internal content, like “Don Quixote,” Molière’s comedies, like Dickens’ “Copperfield” and “The Pickwick Club,” stories by Gogol, Pushkin or some of Maupassant’s works, could be classified as this kind, then these things both in the exclusivity of the feelings conveyed, and in the excess of special details of time and place, and, most importantly, in the poverty of content, compared with examples of the world ancient art, such as, for example, the story of Joseph the Beautiful, are for the most part accessible only to people of their own people and even their own circle. The fact that Joseph's brothers, jealous of his father, sold him to merchants; the fact that Pentefri's wife wants to seduce the young man, that the young man reaches a higher position, feels sorry for his brothers, his beloved Benjamin and everything else - all these are feelings accessible to the Russian peasant, and the Chinese, and the African, and the child, and the old, and the educated, and uneducated; and all this is written so restrainedly, without unnecessary details, that the story can be transferred to any other environment you want, and it will be just as understandable and touching for everyone. But these are not the feelings of Don Quixote or Moliere’s heroes (although Moliere is perhaps the most popular and therefore wonderful artist new art) and even more so the feelings of Pickwick and his friends. These feelings are very exceptional, not universal, and therefore, in order to make them contagious, the authors furnished them with abundant details of time and place. The abundance of these details makes these stories even more exceptional, incomprehensible to all people living outside the environment that the author describes.
In the story about Joseph there was no need to describe in detail, as they do now, Joseph’s bloody clothes, and Jacob’s home and clothes, and the pose and outfit of Pentephry’s wife, how she, adjusting the bracelet on her left hand, said: “Come to me,” and etc., because the content of feeling in this story is so strong that all the details, excluding the most necessary ones, such as, for example, the fact that Joseph went into another room to cry - that all these details are unnecessary and would only get in the way convey a feeling, and therefore this story is accessible to all people, touches people of all nations, classes, ages, has reached us and will live for thousands of years. But take away from best novels details of our time, and what will remain?
So in the new verbal art it is impossible to point to works that fully satisfy the requirements of universality. Even those that exist are spoiled for the most part by what is called realism, which is more accurately called provincialism in art.
In order to accurately define art, we must first of all stop looking at it as a means of pleasure, and consider art as one of the conditions of human life. Considering art in this way, we cannot help but see that art is one of the means of communication between people.
What every work of art does is that the perceiver enters into a certain kind of communication with the one who produced or is producing the art and with all those who, at the same time, before or after it, perceived or will perceive the same artistic impression.
Just as the word, which conveys the thoughts and experiences of people, serves as a means of unifying people, so does art. The peculiarity of this means of communication, which distinguishes it from communication through words, is that with words one person conveys his thoughts to another, while through art people convey their feelings to each other.
The activity of art is based on the fact that a person, perceiving by ear or sight the expression of another person’s feeling, is able to experience the same feeling that the person expressing his feeling experienced.
The simplest example: a person laughs and another person becomes happy; the person who hears this crying becomes sad; a person gets angry, irritated, and another, looking at him, comes into the same state. A person expresses cheerfulness, determination, or, on the contrary, despondency, calmness with his movements and sounds of voice, and this mood is transmitted to others. A person suffers, expressing his suffering with groans and writhing, and this suffering is transmitted to others; a person expresses his feelings of admiration, awe, fear, respect for known objects, persons, phenomena, and other people become infected and experience the same feelings of admiration, awe, fear, respect for the same objects, persons, phenomena.
It is on this ability of people to become infected with the feelings of other people that the activity of art is based.
If a person infects another and others directly with his appearance or the sounds he makes at the very moment he experiences a feeling, makes another person yawn when he himself yawns, or laugh, or cry when he himself laughs or cries at something, or to suffer when oneself suffers is not yet art.
Art begins when a person, in order to convey to other people the feeling he has experienced, again evokes it within himself and expresses it with certain external signs.
Feelings, the most varied, very strong and very weak, very significant and very insignificant, very bad and very good, if only they infect the reader, viewer, listener, constitute a subject of art. The feeling of self-denial and submission to fate or God conveyed by drama; or the delight of lovers described in the novel; or the feeling of voluptuousness depicted in the painting; or the cheerfulness conveyed by a solemn march in music; or the fun caused by dancing; or comedy caused by funny joke; or the feeling of silence conveyed by an evening landscape or a soothing song, all this is art.
As soon as the audience, the listeners, are infected with the same feeling that the writer experienced, this is art.
To evoke in oneself a once-experienced feeling and, having evoked it in oneself, through movements, lines, colors, sounds, images, expressed in words, to convey this feeling so that others experience the same feeling, this is the activity of art. Art is a human activity, consisting in the fact that one person, by consciously known external signs, conveys to others the feelings he experiences, and other people become infected with these feelings and experience them.
Art is not, as metaphysicians say, a manifestation of some mysterious idea, beauty, God; it is not, as aesthetic physiologists say, a game in which a person releases excess accumulated energy; is not a manifestation of emotions by external signs; is not the production of pleasant objects, the main thing is not pleasure, but is a means of communication between people, necessary for life and for the movement towards the good of the individual and humanity, uniting them in the same feelings.
If people did not have the ability to perceive all those thoughts conveyed in words that were changed by previously living people, and to convey their thoughts to others, people would be like animals...
If there were no other ability for a person to be infected by art, people would hardly have been even more savage and, most importantly, disunited and hostile.
And therefore the activity of art is a very important activity, just as important as the activity of speech, and just as widespread.
Assessing the dignity of art, that is, the feelings it conveys, depends on people’s understanding of the meaning of life, on what they see as good and bad in life. The good and evil of life are determined by what are called religions.
Humanity, without ceasing, moves from a lower, more particular and less clear understanding of life to a higher, more general and clearer understanding. And as in any movement, in this movement there are advanced ones: there are people who understand the meaning of life more clearly than others, and of all these advanced people there is always one, more vividly, accessiblely, and powerfully expressed this meaning of life in word and life. The expression by this person of this meaning of life, together with those legends and rituals that usually develop around the memory of this person, is called religion. Religions are pointers to the highest available in given time and in a given society to the best progressive people, an understanding of life to which all other people in this society inevitably and invariably approach. And therefore only religions have always served and serve as the basis for assessing people’s feelings. If feelings bring people closer to the ideal that religion indicates, agree with it, do not contradict it, they are good; if they move away from him, do not agree with him, contradict him, they are bad.
Always, at every time and in every human society, there is a religious consciousness common to all people of this society of what is good and what is bad, and it is this religious consciousness that determines the dignity of the feelings conveyed by art. This is how it was among all peoples: the Greeks, the Jews, the Hindus, the Egyptians, the Chinese; This is how it was with the advent of Christianity.
Great objects of art are great only because they are accessible and understandable to everyone. The story of Joseph translated into Chinese, touches the Chinese. The story of Sakiya Muni touches us. There are the same buildings, paintings, statues, music. And therefore, if art does not touch, then one cannot say that this is due to a lack of understanding by the viewer and listener, but one can and should only conclude from this that it is either bad art or not art at all.
This is why art differs from rational activity, which requires preparation and a certain sequence of knowledge (so you cannot teach trigonometry to a person who does not know geometry), that art affects people regardless of their degree of development and education, that the charm of pictures, sounds, images is infectious every person, no matter what level of development he is at.
The purpose of art is precisely to make understandable and accessible that which could be incomprehensible and inaccessible in the form of reasoning. Usually, when receiving a truly artistic impression, it seems to the recipient that he knew it before, but just did not know how to express it.
What determines good and bad art?
Art, together with speech, is one of the tools of communication, and therefore of progress, that is, the movement forward of humanity towards perfection. Speech makes it possible for people of the last living generations to know everything that previous generations and the best progressive people of our time have learned through experience and reflection; art makes it possible for people of the last living generations to experience all those feelings that people experienced before them and are currently experiencing by the best advanced people. And just as the evolution of knowledge occurs, that is, more true, necessary knowledge displaces and replaces erroneous and unnecessary knowledge, so exactly does the evolution of feelings occur through art, displacing lower, less kind and less necessary feelings for the good of people with kinder, more necessary ones. For this good.
The art of our time and our circle has become a harlot. And this comparison is true down to the smallest detail. It is also not limited by time, it is always decorated, it is always corrupt, it is also tempting and destructive.
A true work of art can only appear in the artist's soul occasionally, as the fruit of a previous life, just like the conception of a child by a mother. Fake art is produced by masters and artisans non-stop, as long as there are consumers.
True art doesn't need decorations like a wife loving husband. Fake art, like a prostitute, must always be decorated.
The reason for the manifestation of real art is the internal need to express the accumulated feeling, just as for a mother the reason for sexual conception is love. The reason for counterfeit art is self-interest, just like prostitution.
The consequence of true art is the introduction of a new feeling into everyday life, just as the consequence of a wife’s love is the birth of a new person into life. The consequence of counterfeit art is the corruption of man, the insatiability of pleasures, and the weakening of man’s spiritual powers.
This is what people of our time and circle must understand in order to get rid of the dirty stream of this depraved, prodigal art that is flooding us.
From notebooks, diaries, letters and draft editions.
<...>The aesthetic and ethical are two arms of the same lever: as one side lengthens and becomes lighter, the other side becomes shorter and heavier. As soon as a person loses moral meaning, so it becomes especially sensitive to the aesthetic.
<...>As soon as art ceases to be the art of the entire people and becomes the art of a small class of rich people, it ceases to be a necessary and important matter, but becomes empty fun.
(Tolstoy L.N. Literature, art. M., 1978)
