Chapter 15 one three

It is strange that when people talk about Tolstoy's ideas on science and art, they usually do not pay attention to his most important work expressing these ideas: What shall we do? (1884-1886) Here, Tolstoy attacked science and art for the first time; none of the subsequent battles was comparable to the fierceness of this first conflict.We wonder that no one thought to revisit these texts during the recent attacks on science and the vanity of the intelligentsia in France.They contain the most violent attacks on the "eunuchs of science," "the usurpers of art," those classes of thought which, after having overthrown or sworn allegiance to the ruling classes (church, state, army) of old, Occupying their position, unwilling or unable to do a little bit for mankind, using the excuse that people worship them and blindly serving them, preaching a shameless belief like doctrine, saying that science is science and art is art. the art of their own—a deceitful mask to conceal their individual egoism and their emptiness.

"Don't think," went on Tolstoy, "that I deny art and science. I do not deny them, but in their name I expel those who betray the palace." "Science is as important as bread and water, and even more so than art...True science is the knowledge of calling, and therefore of the true welfare of man. True art is the confession of calling, of all mankind A confession of real welfare." The people he praises are: "Since the beginning of mankind, on the harp or the lyre, in words or images, express their struggle against deception, express their pain in struggle, express their hope and gain Victory, expressing their desperation for the victory of evil and their enthusiasm for the future."

Thus, he paints a picture of a true artist, full of painful and mysterious passion in his words: "The activities of science and art are only good when they do not assume any rights, but only recognize duties. For sacrifice It is the element of this activity that makes it admirable to mankind. Those who serve others by their spiritual labors suffer forever in order to accomplish this work: for only in pain and boredom can the spiritual state arise. Sacrifice and Suffering is the lot of the thinker and the artist: for his purpose is the common good. Men are wretched, they suffer, they die, we have no time to loaf and be merry. A thinker or an artist is never as commonly believed He remained perpetually bewildered and agitated, as he did, on the heights of the Olympic Mountains. He should decide and say what would benefit mankind, and what would save all peoples from fire and water; he did not decide, he did not say, tomorrow maybe It is too late, and he himself will die... Not one who has been educated in an institution that makes artists and polymaths (and, indeed, one can only make destroyers of science and art there), It is not that a person who has obtained a diploma or a salary will become a thinker or an artist; this is a person who voluntarily does not think or express the accumulation of his soul, but after all he has to express it, because he is driven by two invisible forces. Driven: This is his inner need and his love for humanity. There is no fat, self-satisfied artist.” See What Should We Do? "Pages 378-379.

This wonderful page unfolds a tragic facet of Tolstoy's genius, under the direct impression of his pain from the tragedy of Moscow, and under the recognition that science and art are the unsatisfactory aspects of all modern society. Equality and hypocrisy are accomplices in this belief. ——He has always maintained this belief ever since.But slowly the impressions of his first contact with the misery of the world faded; gradually the scars healed; "Because soothing the pain of others is the essence of a rational life. How can the object of his work become the object of pain for a laborer? It is as if the farmer said that an uncultivated field was a pain to him." In some of his later writings, we will not find such painful moans and vengeful rages as in this book.Nowhere is there to be found the preaching of the artist who created with his own blood, this sacrifice, this agitation of pain, this "fate of the thinker," this abhorrence of Goethe-like supremacy in art.In his later works criticizing art, he discussed it from a literary point of view without so much mystery. Here, the problem of art is separated from the background of human tragedy, which has always made Thors Ty would go wild just thinking about it, the way he'd cried and screamed in despair when he came home the night he'd seen the Night Shelter.

That's not to say his educational writing can sometimes be grim.Coldness is impossible for him.Until his death, he was always the character who wrote to Fett: "If people don't love his crowd, even the humblest, they should scold them so badly that even the heavens blush, Or make their stomachs pop by laughing at them." Correspondence of February 23, 1860. ——Tolstoy doesn't like Turgenev's sad and morbid artist. In his writings on art he practiced what he advocated.The negative part - the abuse and the sarcasm - is so intense that the artists see only his abuse and sarcasm.He also attacked their superstition and sensibility with such violence that they considered him the enemy not only of their art, but of all art.But Tolstoy's criticism is always followed by construction.He never destroys for the sake of destruction, but destroys for the sake of building.And in his modest character, he never pretended to build anything new; he just defended art, defending it so that ordinary fake artists could take advantage of it and damage its honor.In 1887, ten years before his famous Treatise on Art, he wrote to me: "True science and true art have existed and will always exist. This cannot and cannot be disputed. Yes. All the evils of the day are due to the fact that the average self-proclaimed civilized man--there are scholars and artists beside them--is in fact a privileged class like the monks. This class has all the defects of all classes. It puts the social Its principles are lowered to accommodate its own organization. What is called science and art in our world is but a great deception, a great superstition, a new superstition into which we fall when we emerge from the old superstitions of the Church. To know the way we should run, we have to start from the beginning - we have to push back the hood that warms me but hides my sight. The temptation is great. Or we are born to be tempted Yes, or we climb up the ladder step by step; then we are among the privileged people, among the monks of civilization, or culture, as the Germans say. We should, as with the Brahmans or the Christian priests, It takes great sincerity and love of truth to re-examine the principles that secure our privilege. But a serious man must never hesitate to ask the questions of life. To have a penetrating eye, he should cast off His superstition, although it is advantageous to his position. It is an indispensable condition... No superstition. Put yourself in a childlike situation, or have a respect for reason like Descartes..." This The letter, dated October 4, 1887, had been published in Paris in 1902 in the Le Fortune.

The superstition of modern art enjoyed by this powerful class, this "great fraud", was exposed by Tolstoy in his "On Art". "On Art" (according to the original text, the literal translation is "What is Art?" is now translated in China) was published in 1897-1898, but Tolstoy has been thinking about this book for 15 years .In harsh terms, he exposes it for its ridiculousness, its poverty, its hypocrisy, its utter depravity.He rejects everything that has been done.He took this kind of destruction with the joy a child destroys his toys.All these criticisms are full of jokes, but also contain a lot of biased views. This is war.Tolstoy used all kinds of weapons to attack at will, without paying any attention to the true face of the objects he attacked.Often, as happens in all wars, he attacks those whom he should have defended, such as Ibsen or Beethoven.This is because he is too excited to have considerable time to think before acting, also because his enthusiasm blinds him completely to the weakness of his reasons, and also--we should say--because his artistry is not sufficient reason.

What modern art could he know of besides his reading of literature?What paintings did he see, what Europa music could he hear, the country gentleman, who had spent three-quarters of his life in the countryside on the outskirts of Moscow, and had not been to Europe since 1860;—and What did he see besides the only school that interested him? ——With regard to painting, he completely picked up hearsay and random quotations. What he considered decadent were Peeves, Manet, Monet, Böcklin, Stuck, and Klinger. Breton and Lermitre are admired for their good sentiments, but they despise Michelangelo, and Rembrandt is never mentioned among the painters who describe the soul. —As for music, he is more perceptive, and I will mention this again when I discuss the Kreutzer Sonata.But he didn't know him either: he only had the impression of his childhood, and he only knew that he had become a classical writer in the 1840s, and he didn't know any writers after that (except Tchaikovsky, he his music made him weep); he rejected Brahms as much as Richard Strauss, he taught Beethoven a lesson, and his paranoia had grown stronger since 1886.In "What Should We Do?" "In the book, he did not dare to offend Beethoven, nor did he dare to offend Shakespeare.Instead, he blames contemporary artists for daring to criticize them. "The activities of Galileo, Shakespeare, and Beethoven have nothing in common with those of Hugo and Wagner. Just as the saints do not recognize any commonality with the Pope." (see the above book) and when criticizing Wagner, only listen to When he saw "Sigfried" once, he thought he knew everything about him, and when he went to listen to "Sigfried", he entered after the performance began and exited in the middle of the second act.At that time, he still wanted to leave before the first act was settled. "For me, the problem is solved, and I have no doubts. There is nothing to expect from a writer who can imagine these scenarios. We can predict that what he writes will always be bad." - Knowledge about literature, of course richer.But by some strange mistake he avoided criticizing the Russian writers he knew best, and preached to foreign poets whose ideas were very different from his own, and whose works he only handled with contempt. Turn it over!He is known to have invented this astonishing principle for the purpose of making a selection among the works of modern French poets: "In every book, transcribe the poem on page twenty-eight."

His assertiveness increased with age.He even wrote an entire book proving that Shakespeare was "not an artist". "He can be any character; but he is not an artist.". On Shakespeare (1903) - The motivation for this book was an essay by Ernest Grosby on Shakespeare and the Working Class. The affirmation is amazing!Tolstoy had no doubts.He won't discuss it.He has the truth.He will tell you: "The Ninth Symphony is a work that separates people." The original text reads: "The Ninth Symphony cannot unite all, but only a few, for which it separates them from the rest of."

Or: "In addition to Bach's famous violin key and Chopin's Nocturne in E key, and a dozen works selected from the works of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, Chopin, etc., - and only these works All but a part of it—all else should be repulsed and scorned, like the art of separating crowds.” Or: "I'm going to prove that Shakespeare is hardly a fourth-rate writer. And at the point of describing human nature, he is completely incompetent." Whether the rest of the human beings in the world disagree with him, it can't stop him , exactly the opposite! "My opinion," he wrote haughtily, "is different from all European opinion of Shakespeare."

In his obsession with lies, he senses them everywhere; there is a thought which, the more prevalent it is, the more he attacks it; he does not believe it, he suspects it, as when he says of Shakespeare's glory: "This is an infectious disease that humans will always feel. Crusaders in the Middle Ages believed in black magic and pursued the alchemy of alchemists. Humans can only see the madness of their infection when they get rid of it. Because With the development of newspapers, these epidemics are more rampant." - He also cited the "Dreyfus Affair" as the latest example of this epidemic.He, the enemy of all injustice, the defender of all the oppressed, spoke of this great event with a contemptuous indifference. "It's a common occurrence that has never been noticed by anyone, I don't say universally, but not even in the French military." Then he added: "Probably in a few years' time." , people will wake up from their bewilderment, and realize that they do not know at all whether Dreyfus is guilty or not, and that everyone has bigger and more immediate things to pay attention to than this Dreyfus affair.” (On Shakespeare. ") This obvious example can prove that his overcorrecting attitude has pushed his hatred and denunciation of lies to the extreme point of "spiritual contagion". He knows it himself, but he can't restrain it. The backside of human morality , the inconceivable blindness that made this penetrating soul, this passionate evocative, regard King Lear as a "bad work." Take haughty Cordelia A. Lear's daughter, an exemplary Dutiful daughters as "characters without personality." "King Lear" is a very bad, sloppy play, and it's nothing but disgusting. "—"Othello" is more favorable to Tolstoy, no doubt because it agrees with the views on marriage and jealousy in his time. "It is certainly the least bad work of Shakespeare, but it is only a group A combination of exaggerated words. "The character of Hamlet has no character at all: "This is the author's phonograph, which mechanically describes the author's thoughts. As for The Tempest, Cymbeline, Troilus and Cressida, etc., he mentions only for their "badness" that the only natural character he considers Shakespeare is Falstaff, "Because of this, Shakespeare's cruel and ironic words are in harmony with the vanity, hypocrisy, and depravity of the characters in the play. But Tolstoy didn't always think this way. In 1860-1870, he read Shakespeare's plays with pleasure, especially at the time when he wanted to write a historical play about Peter I. In the Notes of 1869, we can see that he made Hamlet his model and guide. After referring to the work he just finished, he said: "Hamlet and my future work, This is the novelist's poetic use to describe character. "

But it must also be admitted that he clearly saw some of Shakespeare's faults, which we cannot sincerely say;I fully understand that Tolstoy is the least literary man of all writers, so he naturally does not have much affection for the art of the most talented among literary men.But why did he spend his time talking about things that others couldn't understand?And what is the value of criticism in a world that is completely irrelevant to you? If we want to explore those foreign literary approaches in these criticisms, then these criticisms are worthless.If we are to find the key to Tolstoy's art in it, its value is inestimable.We cannot demand disinterested criticism from a creative genius.When Wagner and Tolstoy talked about Beethoven and Shakespeare, they were not talking about Beethoven and Shakespeare, but themselves; they were expressing their ideals.They hardly try to lie to us.In criticizing Shakespeare, Tolstoy does not make himself "objective."He is reproaching Shakespeare's objective art.author of impersonal art, for those German critics who, after Goethe, discovered Shakespeare, who discovered that "art should be objective, that is, should represent the story apart from all moral values,—that is Those who deny the theory of art for religious purposes do not seem to be contemptuous enough. So Tolstoy proclaims his art criticism from the peak of faith, and in his criticism there is no need to look for any personal prejudices.He does not hold himself up as a model; he has as little pity for his own work as for that of others.He also included his fantasies in "Bad Art". (See "On Art") - When he criticizes modern art, he does not make an exception for his own plays. He criticizes "the lack of religious concepts on which future plays should be based." So, what does he wish, What value does the religious ideal he proposes have for art? This ideal is wonderful. The term "religious art" is easily misunderstood in terms of its broad meaning.In fact, Tolstoy did not limit art, but expanded art.Art, he said, is everywhere. "Art permeates all of our lives. What we call art: plays, concerts, books, exhibitions, are but a tiny fraction. Our lives are filled with artistic expressions of all kinds, from children's games to religion. Ritual. Art and speech are the two functions of human progress. One is to communicate with the soul, and the other is to exchange ideas. If one of them goes astray, society will become sick. Today's art has gone astray." Since the Renaissance we have not been able to speak of an art in the Christian nations.The classes are separated from each other.The rich, the privileged, have usurped the monopoly of art; they set the standard of art according to their own pleasure.Art becomes impoverished when kept away from the poor. "The sentiments felt by those who do not work are much narrower than those felt by those who work. The sentiments of modern society can be summed up in three: pride, sensuality, and weariness of life. These three sentiments and Its branches have almost created all the artistic themes of the wealthy class." It corrupts the world and degrades the people.Fostering lust, it becomes the greatest obstacle to the realization of human welfare.And there is no real beauty in it, unnatural, insincere,—an artificial, fleshly art. In front of the lies of the estheticians and the amusements of the rich, let us build a living, human art that unites mankind, unites classes, and unites nations.There have been glorious examples in the past. "What we consider to be the most sublime arts: the epics of Genesis, the fables of the Gospels, legends, fairy tales, folk songs, always known and loved by the majority of mankind." The greatest art is the work that conveys the religious consciousness of the age.Do not think that this is a kind of church-ism. ""Every society has a religious view of life: this is an ideal of happiness to which the whole society aspires. "Everyone has a sentiment, whether it feels more obvious or darker; some forwards clearly express it. "There is always a sense of religion. This is the river bed." Or rather: "This is the direction of the river." The religious consciousness of our age is the desire for happiness brought about by human fraternity.Only what works for this combination is true art.The sublime art is the art which accomplishes this work directly through the power of love.But attacking with rage and contempt everything against the principles of fraternity is also an art of participating in the cause.For example, the novels of Dickens, the works of Dostoevsky, Hugo's, Millet's paintings.Even if it does not reach this peak, all art which expresses everyday life with sympathy and truth promotes the unity of mankind.Such as "Don Quixote", and Molière's plays.Of course, this last art is often erroneous because of its too trivial realism and the poverty of its subject matter, "if we compare it with ancient models, such as the "Acts of Joseph".A detail that is too real prevents the work from becoming universal. "Modern works are often burdened by realism, and we should condemn this narrow artistic sentiment." Thus Tolstoy does not hesitate to criticize elements of his own genius.Nor does it matter to him that he sacrifices his whole self to the future, so that nothing remains of himself. "The art of the future will not inherit the art of the present, it will be built on other foundations. It will no longer be the property of a class. Art is not a skill, it is the expression of true sentiment. However, artists can only Not alone, only when living the natural life of human beings can one feel true sentiments. Therefore, those who are sheltered by life are in the worst environment in creation.” In the future, "everyone with a vocation will become an artist." "Because there are music and painting courses and grammar teaching children at the same time in elementary schools", everyone has the opportunity to achieve artistic activities.Moreover, art does not need complex techniques, as it is now, and it will follow the path of simplicity, simplicity, and clarity, which are the elements of classical, sound, and Homeric art.In 1873, Tolstoy wrote: "You may think as much as you want, but every word in your work must be understood by a cart driver who transports books from the printing office. In a kind of complete understanding and Nothing bad can ever be written in simple words." How wonderful it would be to express this universal sentiment in this clean-lined art!To write a fairy tale or a song or draw a portrait for tens of millions of human beings is more important and much more difficult than writing a novel or a symphony.Tolstoy himself makes an example.His "Four Kinds of Readers" are used in all small schools throughout Russia, whether inside or outside the classroom.His "Popular Short Stories" has become the reading material of countless people.Stepan Anikin said in his speech "In Memory of Tolstoy" at the University of Geneva on December 7, 1910: "Among the lower classes, Tolstoy's name and 'books' concepts are linked together." We can hear a Russian townsman in the library saying to the librarian: "Give me a good book, a Tolstoy!" (he meant a thick book) this is a vast, almost unexplored field.Through these works, mankind will know the happiness of fraternity and unity. "Art should abolish violence, and it alone can do so. Its mission is to make the kingdom of heaven, love, reign over everything." This union of love among human beings was not yet for Tolstoy the end of human activity; his The insatiable soul made him harbor a vague ideal beyond love. He said: "Maybe one day science will discover a higher artistic ideal, which will be realized by art." Who among us would disagree with these generous words?And who doesn't see how much ideal and childish Tolstoy's conception is vivid and rich!Yes, our art is all just the expression of one class, and on the boundary between this country and another country, it is divided into several hostile territories.In Europe there is not a soul of an artist who can achieve the unity of all parties and races.In our time, the most common is the soul of Tolstoy.In his soul we are in love, and people of all classes and nations are united.He, like us, has tasted this great love, and can no longer be satisfied with the remnants of the great human soul that the art of the small group of Europe has given us.