Great. So what is your understanding of art? Why must art have some special quality? What would you call it: authenticity, sincerity, integrity…?
An artist must be moved to create the art. Previously, I used the word “soul” not in the religious context, but in the context of the immaterial part of us that holds our deepest truths. This is the fount from which art is drawn.
Of course Tolstoy is such a good writer that he makes his case more persuasively than I did. Here he decries “borrowing”.
Some forty years ago a stupid but highly cultured—ayant beaucoup d’acquis —lady (since deceased) asked me to listen to a novel written by herself. It began with a heroine who, in a poetic white dress, and with poetically flowing hair, was reading poetry near some water in a poetic wood. The scene was in Russia, but suddenly from behind the bushes the hero appears, wearing a hat with a feather à la Guillaume Tell (the book specially mentioned this) and accompanied by two poetical white dogs. The authoress deemed all this highly poetical, and it might have passed muster if only it had not been necessary for the hero to speak. But as soon as the gentleman in the hat à la Guillaume Tell began to converse with the maiden in the white dress, it became obvious that the authoress had nothing to say, but had merely been moved by poetic memories of other works, and imagined that by ringing the 108changes on those memories she could produce an artistic impression. But an artistic impression, i.e. infection, is only received when an author has, in the manner peculiar to himself, experienced the feeling which he transmits, and not when he passes on another man’s feeling previously transmitted to him.
Of course Tolstoy is grasping at low-hanging fruit – there are doubtless examples of “borrowing” which are more qualified as art. Nonetheless, he makes his case fairly well – just as in War and Peace he makes his anti-great-man theory of history seem utterly reasonable based on the (fictional) action of the novel.
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Thanks for explaining. It doesn’t match my views but interesting to read it.
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As Orwell pointed out, perhaps Tolstoy’s antipathy for “King Lear” was the result of his similarity to the King in old age. Both had trouble with their families, and fought over inheritance.
I doubt this but I am happy to explore further. Why does this matter and what does “moved” mean? How is moved different say to motivated (by money, food, recognition, hatred)? And how does one tell when art has been gestated by the correct feelings?
An argument in favour of the artist expressing his/her own truth
moved emotionally
Feelings experienced in a perceptual reality are not correct or incorrect, they just are
I don’t understand how this theory matters. Tell me what can demonstrate that art needs an artist to feel emotions while making art. What are the details? Can you tell a work motivated by technical skill versus sadness, for instance? How does one tell if a work has been produced by any emotional state?
Did Tolstoy know what Anna Karenina felt? Did he feel it, too? And the reader? Did the reader know how Anna Karenina felt, and relate to it? If the answer to these questions is “yes” - then it is art.
Personally, I think mediocre and even bad art is “art”. My own fiction involves “borrowing”.
By the way, when Anna and Vronsky go to Italy and Vronsky tries to learn how to paint, that section (which I don’t remember perfectly) is another Tolstoy discussion on “what is art”. MY memory (I don’t have my copy with me) is that Tolstoy admired paintings that told a touching story.
Oscar Wilde’s great children’s stories (The Selfish Giant and The Happy Prince) seem to me to involve technical skill (although they may also involve infection of legitimate feelings – it’s hard to say).
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I’m not sure this answers any of my questions, so perhaps we should move on. As for what Tolstoy felt, who would know? As a reader, I found Anna Karenina boring, so I certainly didn’t feel it.
I certainly, and I presume others, want to know what this is, or how you know about it. Intuition wont satisfy that, unfortunately. Which isn’t to say you’re unable to wield this with no explanation at all - I’m just curious as to what you think that actually consists in, beyond a concept.
largely, because it seems to inform some of your other replies here that I can see aren’t answering much for respondents.
It is all my perceptions of the world and how I make sense of them. It is my lived experience and my take on it.
I’m living it
Right. Okay. I guess then be prepared for no one to have any clue what you’re talking about because that’s a private notion you can’t convey to others in this context.
I even know what you’re talking about, conceptually - But i cannot understand how, or why its relevant here.
Just a note to be aware of..
This may disqualify you from all discussions about literature! The main problem with Anna Karennina is that it is too good (and hence too depressing) to reread often. It does illuminate Tolstoy’s autodidactic tendencies; he loves to philosophize and preach. The novel is structurally perfect: each character has parts represented by other characters: Levin by his two brothers (and by Vronsky); Anna by Kitty (both are in love with Vronsky – but Anna’s passions are pitched at a higher and more tragic level), and by her brother Oblonsky (whose situation is similar to Anna’s – once again he is saved by being less passionate and caring). This seems to represent Tolstoy’s technical skill, not his experience of Anna’s emotions (Levin is the autobiographical figure in the Novel).
Thanks for the heads up, but I’m good.
exactly what do you think the artist (or really any person in their conduct) draws upon but their lived experience?
Fwiw, I didn’t suggest they drew on anything else, and I suggest that’s all humans have available to them (and analysis, obviously).
For my part, I simply have no clue what you’re talking about with those lines, in this context. The line i quoted just gives nothing anyone can discuss. What are our “deepest truths” and where are they?
These are rhetorically, as you and I are well aware we don’t see eye-to-eye there. I just don’t want you to get disappointed by the daylight between such a line, and a discussion of artistic origins.
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Art is aesthetic experience: its re/production, presentation, and consumption.
In you. Do you not have anything that you accept so completely that you do not question it? Do you not have a solid sense of self?