Tolstoy and Art

Tolstoy’s definition of art requires that the artist intend to infect another with an emotion and that the viewer is effectively infected. This seems like a difficult task to accomplish. It also eliminates taste as a factor in art. The entire world could like the look of one painting, but unless they became emotionally infected they could not call it art. The idea of infecting people with emotions provides art with a lot of power if it is true. It would mean that looking at a painting that is intended to show anger will actually make you angry. It would mean that surrounding people with certain art would be an excellent form of propaganda. If you want people to go to war, surround them with art that evokes anger and hate of those people. This art would also be good art according to Tolstoy’s definition because art “is that human activity which consists in one man’s consciously conveying to others, by certain external signs, the feelings he has experienced, and in others being infected by those feelings and also experiencing them”(108). One concern would be art’s infection creating an epidemic. This possibility that art could change the emotional outlook of a people for the worse, especially if they were constantly surrounded by art that provoked negative emotions, is a cause for concern if Tolstoy’s definition of art and its abilities is accurate. Of course, he does not specify the amount of time that art infects people. If someone hears a song and for a few seconds they are infected with an emotion it will not likely have a very strong impact. Another unaddressed issue is art’s lasting impact on the same person in multiple viewings or hearings. If one song infects me emotionally once for a few seconds than this would fit his definition of art, but would not seem to be a problem for emotionally leading people. If one song infects someone for hours each time they listen to it, then art becomes a dangerous way of controlling people. People are often guided by emotions and Tolstoy’s definition seems to give artists the potential to control the audience’s emotions. Tolstoy finds art is a positive aspect of society but this conclusion does not seem to be the only natural progression from his analysis.

                How powerful do you think art is over people and their actions?