Tolstoys Philosophy of Art Essay examples -- Visual Arts Paintings Ar

Tolstoy's Philosophy of Art Tolstoy approaches art with a very specific and narrow view of what is real and what is counterfeit in classifying artwork and what makes a work of art good or bad. Tolstoy believes that a work of art can be classified as "real" if and only if "one man consciously by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings and also experience them" (10). He believes that art can only be defined as real by its ability to make the audience feel what the artist had intended to convey with his/her artwork. The feelings the artist intends to convey must also be sincere and true feelings based on personal experience, expressed to the audience in such a way that the viewer/listener feels as if the artist is merely expressing something he/she feels and has always longed to express. To offset this definition, Tolstoy defines counterfeit art as having "no impression on anyone" (513). He says that distinguishing real art from counterfeit art can be done simply by determining the "infectiousness of art" (514). Tolstoy claims that any piece of art, no matter how beautiful, intriguing, interesting, poetic, striking, or realistic cannot be defined as real unless it also maintains this quality of infectiousness. After defining the difference between real and counterfeit art, Tolstoy goes on to relay the difference between what classifies good and bad art. Tolstoy cl...