Tolstoy on Art

Tolstoy had strong convictions regarding what true art was and what was not. He wrote extensively about it, e.g. What is Art and others, but those writings dealing with art are largely ignored in favor of his two main novels. War and Peace and Anna Karenina are definitely his best works, but he wrote so much else besides them.

Tolstoy holds that art is a fundamental thing in the very movement and action of human life. Art is the conduit between the writer and the reader, or the composer and the listener etc., where the creator of the art transmits his emotions to the partaker of the art. Thus, in such a basic view of art, he belittles the overly intellectual, art for art's sake, as speaking nonsense instead of coherent thought, or in this case emotion.

He cites an experience where he was walking to his house for a small gathering of friends and on the way heard a small group of peasant women heartily singing to welcome home his daughter. He was deeply touched by the emotion that they translated and transmitted into song, and went inside to meet his friends. An acquaintance played a piece by Beethoven, Tolstoy specifies a later piece, and Tolstoy is completely underwhelmed by its self-concious, trivial ora after just hearing the peasant choir.

Many authors, yesterday in Tolstoy's era, and even more so today in our's, reagard art as purely entertainment. A talented flourish of the pen is reagarded as art purely because it is talented.

Do you feel this is true/relevant in discussing if a work is truely art or not? Or is art for art's sake an acceptable position to hold in regards to the value and purpose of this grand thing called art?

I've always found Tolstoy to be a scold, a nag, a "teacher" and, in translation, (the only way I can read him) a not very memorable writer. The horse race with Vronsky, for example, which should have some excitement, is as dull and distant as a church sermon. I can't recall a single metaphor or description in Tolstoy, nor accurately picture a character,while I can recite whole paragraphs of Nabokov and would know many of Chekhov's characters if I bumped into them on the street. Maybe the Count's translators are to blame. But Chekhov seems Tolstoy's master in every way. Tolstoy pushed his characters around to instruct us. He threw them under trains. He sent them out to thrash wheat in the fields. I loathe didactic art, prescriptive art, writing meant to set characters against the history of their times. The sad and wonderful truth is, any and all writers are victims of their times and created by local history; they needn't strain to dramatize either. Inescapable. The science fiction writer from 1930 reads like a writer from 1930even if he sets his story in 2130. Tolstoy's understanding of art, I think, had to do with his own belief that he understood something or felt something more profoundly than civilians. He didn't. His self-imposed obligation to explain to his readers amounts finally to hectoring.The death of Ivan whatever-ovitch is as dismal and unneccessary a fiction, or artwork, as I can imagine anyone writing: like being buttonholed by a drunk who insists on telling you, "We are all going to die someday! Don't you realize?" But as Ray Carver realized, the world will always prefer the artist who is obvious and easily understood to the artist who pays his readers the compliment of NOT explaining things, but assuming his/her readers already know and have lived through a lot. Teasing out deeper and original mysteries is the real chore of writers--and it's the toughest work there is.I've yet to find a new idea or phrase in Tolstoy, but one poem by, say, Wallace Stevens or one short story by, say, Don Barthelme, is bristling with both.

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Originally Posted by jblacktree

I've always found Tolstoy to be a scold, a nag, a "teacher" and, in translation, (the only way I can read him) a not very memorable writer.

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There are some good points in your post, but it is, overall, much too severe. What Tolstoy lacked in the "purity" of his art he made up in absolute conviction and purpose. And what writers of "pure", completely un-didactic, art, have in their absence any sort of moral relation to their characters and story, they pay the price in the completeness of vision that Tolstoy had.

I love Chekhov as well, and Chekhov, though differing slightly in his view towards art, respected Tolstoy and saw the genius that sometimes was obscured through the haze of his blatant morals.

Overall, I don't think it is very debatable that Tolstoy is a great artist and writer. He had flaws just like every person, and no more than people like Wallace Stevens or others.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jblacktree

I've always found Tolstoy to be a scold, a nag, a "teacher" and, in translation, (the only way I can read him) a not very memorable writer. The horse race with Vronsky, for example, which should have some excitement, is as dull and distant as a church sermon. I can't recall a single metaphor or description in Tolstoy, nor accurately picture a character,while I can recite whole paragraphs of Nabokov and would know many of Chekhov's characters if I bumped into them on the street. Maybe the Count's translators are to blame. But Chekhov seems Tolstoy's master in every way. Tolstoy pushed his characters around to instruct us. He threw them under trains. He sent them out to thrash wheat in the fields. I loathe didactic art, prescriptive art, writing meant to set characters against the history of their times. The sad and wonderful truth is, any and all writers are victims of their times and created by local history; they needn't strain to dramatize either. Inescapable. The science fiction writer from 1930 reads like a writer from 1930even if he sets his story in 2130. Tolstoy's understanding of art, I think, had to do with his own belief that he understood something or felt something more profoundly than civilians. He didn't. His self-imposed obligation to explain to his readers amounts finally to hectoring.The death of Ivan whatever-ovitch is as dismal and unneccessary a fiction, or artwork, as I can imagine anyone writing: like being buttonholed by a drunk who insists on telling you, "We are all going to die someday! Don't you realize?" But as Ray Carver realized, the world will always prefer the artist who is obvious and easily understood to the artist who pays his readers the compliment of NOT explaining things, but assuming his/her readers already know and have lived through a lot. Teasing out deeper and original mysteries is the real chore of writers--and it's the toughest work there is.I've yet to find a new idea or phrase in Tolstoy, but one poem by, say, Wallace Stevens or one short story by, say, Don Barthelme, is bristling with both.

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''The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth''.

These are the words of the master, Tolstoy, and i dont think can anyone in the least find any contradiction in any of His works, and that is an open challenge... What the hell, does the world accepts or rejects, does it matter, would it have mattered to him??
This happened to Kafka, this happened to Proust, this did to Dostoevsky... what world are u talking about? If these people had danced to the tunes of the world, what would have been produced would not have been of this stature, everlasting and priceless. that would have been a trifling piece of muck that today abounds in so called literary circles.

Presenting truth blatantly, in a form that may be undigestible, to those who want it be given in a sugary coating and dished out in a palatable fashion, if that is what is called didactism, then Tolstoy be didactic, its more wonderful that way. If shunning the hypocritical, frivolous, fickle world and stressing upon a conscientious bearing as well as to strive towards a higher, deeper meaning of life is what is called being too moralistic, Moralistic tolstoy is great too...

See what we have done to the world... cant you? We still fight wars without any ends to attain, on flimsy ground, on nationalism, regionalism, religionism or on what not 'ism's pretext. Its Tolstoy's words that shout out loud, have always done, ever since they were conceived. But here there is no one to listen to cos we are all deaf, consumerist, materialistic, maniacs bent on paving the ways to self anhilation and our arrogance doesnt allow a space for Tolstoy, then be so.. But the truth in his words would still behold one, who happened to lay hand on one of the 'Tolstoys' .........