What Is Art Essay

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Good and Bad Art from Tolstoy’s and Danto’s Perspective

Abstract

Although people realized that there is a problem in defining what is art a long time ago, this question is still controversial until now. Tons of artists and philosophers claim their own standards for categorizing good art from bad art. Lots of people relate art to beauty and pleasure, but there are some philosophers who hold different ideas like Tolstoy and Danto. They emphasize more on the additional quality that the artwork carries. Thus, this essay aims to analyze the meaning of art, targeting how Tolstoy defines art differently from Danto according to their essays about defining art. The communication between the artist and the audience is highly asserted in Tolstoy’s point of view, whereas the art world is perfectly created by Danto. Though both of them affirm the meaning of art, the ways of differentiating good art from bad art are considerably different. By comparing these two views of art, a clear concept might be constructed, knowing how to categorize art on its own. Based on these theories, we can know the purpose of art, and what is the secret of the art, instead of just commenting on the appearance of the art itself. However, these standards for defining art are just for reference, not a strict index that all people should follow. People could apply these perspectives and create their own standards of differentiating art. After all, these standards are created by humans, so there are no right or wrong answers.

Keywords:

communication, universal assessable, artworld, counterfeit, invisible differences

Introduction

In general, some people usually connect art with beauty, whereas others may hold the idea that art is an indefinable concept. However, for Tolstoy and Danto, it is not as simple as most people’s view. Both of them realize that there is a problem with defining art. Unlike what Oscar Wilde (1890) advocated, “Art for art’s sake”, Tolstoy and Danto believe that arts embodied “meanings”. That is, they think art not just relates to the aesthetic aspects but has something to do with moral issues.

In Tolstoy’s point of view, art is not just for the elite class to share, but it should be universally accessible. As to Danto, aesthetics is just a way of pursuing pleasure; in contrast, the philosophy of art is appropriate for dealing with the question: of what art is. Thus, they came up with distinctive standards for defining art. On the one hand, Tolstoy emphasizes the power of feeling, which could connect people together through art. Danto, on the other hand, points out that actually, not everything could be art. There are some invisible properties deep inside each work of art, so it is necessary to add new theories to make it real art.

Most importantly, both of them deny that every piece of art is good enough to be art, and that is why each of them has a different canon to distinguish good arts from bad ones. Nevertheless, why should we know what kind of art is good and what is bad? Does art have something to do with us relevantly? Therefore, the aim of this current paper is to discuss how Danto and Tolstoy define art from good to bad in terms of the concerns of defining art, the importance of art, the elements of differentiating art, and the benefits of comparing these two points of view will be explained as well.

Literature Review

The idea of art as a way for human pleasure or life is not necessary for Tolstoy’s view. Instead, he regards art much morally. Like Kardozi (2011) mentioned, “Tolstoy considers art as a means of communication between humans. More than language, art could break all boundaries and establish a relationship between the creator of a work of art and a viewer.” Clearly, he doesn’t assume art in a traditional way but points out that art could help people connect with each other. After all, that is one of the vital needs of humans. Regarding Danto, he denies that the purpose of art is for pursuing beauty, either. However, his view is slightly different from Tolstoy’s. As Yale University Press (2013) concluded, “If there are no standards according to which we can differentiate art from non-art, art is a vacuous concept. If everything can be art, nothing can be art. Art has come to an end.” Therefore, we can apparently see that Danto yearns for building a set of standards that can separate real art from non-art, giving a chance to enhance and glorify those creative arts.

As long as art exists, it could be either good or bad.

According to Scott (2002):

The more that art restricts itself to a particular audience, the more obscure and incomprehensible it becomes to people outside that particular audience. Good art is not confusing and incomprehensible to most people. On the contrary, good art can communicate its meaning to most people, because it expresses its meaning in a way that can be understood by everyone.

It is obviously seen that he highlights the importance of the concept “universally accessible”, which was emphasized in Tolstoy’s standard of good art. Moreover, he regards art which relates to religion the best as Scott (2002) mentioned, “The ‘highest’ feelings which art may express are related to religious perception.” Also, as Gracyk (2002) explained, “Good art ‘unites’ us, as in ‘Christian Art.’” Thus, good art seems to be religious and communicative. Why is it communicative? As Gracyk (2002) mentioned, “it is sincere and the artist is compelled by an inner need to express this particular emotion.” That is, sincerity is the crucial element that makes art good art. Even so, Minguzzi (2013) added, “Following the conceptual creativity of his European colleagues, Danto coined the term to suggest that it is not possible to understand conceptual art without the help of the art world.” When it comes to Danto’s era, it seems that the traditional standards are not enough to judge those dynamic arts, so the art world is needed. In this art world, “Danto introduces the concepts of IT (Imitation Theory) in contraposition with RT (Reality Theory) to explain how to define art, especially referring to the avant-garde movement and the post-impressionist paintings.” described by Minguzzi (2013). That is, works of art must include both Imitation Theory and Reality Theory that could be affirmed as good art.

In contrast, as long as there is good art, bad art exists, too. As mentioned before, art should be universally accessible from Tolstoy’s point of view, so it should not belong to a specific society. According to Scott (2002), “Tolstoy criticizes the belief that art is only relevant to a particular class of society, saying that this is a misconception which can lead to obscurity and decadence in art.”

As far as Danto’s view, “According to it (RT), the artists in question were to be understood not as unsuccessfully imitating real forms” as Minguzzi (2013) mentioned in AESTHETICS OF VISUAL ART: Arthur Danto’s “The Artworld”. Therefore, we know that if art does not follow Reality Theory, it shall not be considered real art.

Results

When it comes to the explanation of defining art, Tolstoy and Danto hold different ideas. Firstly, it is essential to know how they notice the problem of defining art. According to Tolstoy, “Hundreds of thousands of workmen spend their whole lives in hard labor to satisfy the demands of art” (§ 10) it is not difficult to understand that a work of art actually requires tons of humans to make it perfect. Therefore, since too many men are sacrificed because of art, the question has been brought out “is it true that art is so important that such sacrifices should be made for its sake?” (§ 14) That is, Tolstoy is concerned about what kinds of arts really deserve such sacrifices? In Tolstoy’s point of view, “we keep redefining art to incorporate canonical works, deemed canonical by the elite class that dominates the world of art. The result is art theory that disparages the art ‘of the people in favor of elite or ‘genteel art.’ ” (§ 67) Clearly, the emphasis on the whole society is much more important than focusing on a specific class of the society. To him, pursuing pleasure in arts is not art. Unlike defining art based on its form or beauty, art for him is related to moral issues as mentioned before. Art is not merely to produce beauty but to communicate with each other. That is to say, he cares more about the connection between the artist and the audience. As long as the artist can “infect” his own feeling to the audience through his work of art, it is art. This point could be clearly seen in chapter five, “The activity of art is based on the fact that a man receiving through his sense of hearing or sight another man’s expression of feeling, is capable of experiencing the emotion which moved the man who expressed it.” (§ 49) Owing to this, it is obviously known that art is important to everyone to a certain degree since communication plays a crucial role in humans’ life. Art can be important to all of society.

Similarly, Danto disagrees the aim of art is merely for delectation, either. Instead, the philosophy of art for Danto seems to solve the question of art: what makes art?

During the period the late 1880s and early 1900s, it is no longer popular to view art as imitations of Plato’s point of view. The definition of art had been overthrown. Some may hold the idea that art does not exist in real life like Oscar Wilde, whereas others may think that we need a new art world to define those creative arts. After all, if everything could be art, which one is actual art? Those are the new attitudes toward art in the early 1900s when Post-Impressionism was in the mainstream. That is, art at that time was not just mimicking but with much more imagination and creation. Therefore, Danto invented an Artworld to redefine those undefined arts.

Good Art

As human beings, people would usually judge art from good to bad based on their experiences. For Tolstoy, good art is a means of communication. “To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling – this is the activity of art.” (§ 51) That is, the transmission of the feeling from the artist to the audience is extremely crucial to a work of art. As Tolstoy claimed, “The activity of art is based on the fact that a man receiving through his sense of hearing or sight another man’s expression of feeling, is capable of experiencing the emotion which moved the man who expressed it.” (§ 57) Most importantly, the audience can understand the “same” feeling that be expressed clearly by the artist, so the work of art could be regarded as good art. However, the quality of art depends on the conditions required artists to have in order to infect the audience, including individuality, clearness, and sincerity. In other words, the artist should be more specific to his own idea in a clear way, and the most important thing is that he should be sincere enough to create his work of art.

According to Tolstoy, the degree of the infectiousness of art depends on three conditions:

(1) On the greater or lesser individuality of the feeling transmitted; (2) on the greater or lesser clearness with which the feeling is transmitted; (3) on the sincerity of the artist, that is, on the greater or lesser force with which the artist himself feels the emotion he transmits. (§164)

It is important for the artist to have just “one” feeling in his work of art. In other words, he cannot mix with other things up in his work of art, and that is the individuality of feeling. Secondly, the artist needs to express his art clearly so as to let the recipient connect with his art easily. Finally, sincerity is the inner state of the artist that needs to be understood by the recipients. No matter whether the art is good or bad, the artist has to be sincere enough first, so the recipient could accept the feeling directly. Tolstoy then found the problem that art seems to be dominated by the elite class, but in that way, art is only created in order to satisfy those people. As he mentioned, “we keep redefining art to incorporate canonical works, deemed canonical by the elite class that dominates the world of art. The result is art theory that disparages art ‘of the people in favor of elite or ‘genteel art.’” (§ 67) Thus, he claims that art should be both universally accessible to everyone by saying “If art is something important, then it is universally accessible.” Good arts should not confuse people; on the contrary, comprehensible arts that everyone can understand are regarded as good arts. As Scott (2002) mentioned, “Tolstoy also claims that interpretation or criticism of art is irrelevant and unnecessary because any good work of art is able to express thoughts and feelings which can be clearly understood by most people.” Apparently, if the art is good enough, there is no need to have critics comment or judge those works of art. Furthermore, good arts are usually related to religions. In Tolstoy’s point of view, art is not strictly aesthetic but moral and social. “Is it a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress towards the well-being of individuals and of humanity.” (§ 52) Take the Bible, for example, it not only gathers people together but also serves as an important life-leading rule for tons of people, and so as Koran? Those are all works of art that have the theme of religion and can be understood and agreed upon by several people in many languages, so they are regarded as good art in Tolstoy’s view. Also, after reading Homer’s work when Tolstoy was a child, he claimed that “Just as in ancient Greece crowds assembled to hear the poems of Homer, so today in Russia, as in many countries and many ages, the Gospel parables, and much else of the highest art, are gladly heard by the common people.” (§ 144) Thus, we can clearly understand by the metaphor that good art, which is similar to Humor’s work everyone could be able to connect.

Instead of a vacuous concept, Danto claimed that art should be about something that embodies “meaning”. The meaning that contends in the artworks is due to the “invisible common property”. As Randol (2014) mentioned, “Danto concludes that for every piece of art that has ever existed, there must be an invisible common property. Works of art, he contends, are embodied meanings. Embodiment is not clearly defined, but one can think of embodied meanings like one thinks of a person’s character: it is there, a foundational property, deeply hidden, manifesting in personality.” As long as there is meaning in the artworks, the task for the viewers is to indicate the invisible differences of the artworks, which is the meaning. In short, meaning and embodiment are the two criteria to define a work of art, along with the interpretation of the viewers.

In order to comprehend conceptual art, Danto suggested boasting an Artworld, which allows the creative works of art to be apprehensible. In Artworld, Danto emphasized the concepts of IT and RT. IT means Imitation Theory, which is the idea that artworks represent the imitation of real things in the world. However, IT is not good enough to explain the movement of Post Impressionism. According to The Art Story Foundation (2018), “most Post-Impressionists focused on abstract form and pattern in the application of paint to the surface of the canvas. Their early leanings toward abstraction paved the way for the radical modernist exploration of abstraction that took place in the early-20th century.” Clearly, the artworks that Post Impressionists made were not just mimic real life but were more creative, so IT is absolutely insufficient for those innovative ones. Therefore, theoretical changes were needed. Danto then established RT, meaning Reality Theory, emphasizing that art is something original and distinguishable.

Owing to the popularity of Imitation Theory at that time, it seems that mimicking to real-life objects is considered good art. However, in Danto’s point of view, it is no longer good enough for those Post-Impressionists to present their arts since if they keep viewing those arts by using Imitation Theory, those creative arts may be regarded as weird or not even arts like he noted, “In terms of the prevailing artistic theory (IT), it was impossible to accept these as art unless inept art: otherwise they could be discounted as hoaxes, self-advertisements, or the visual counterparts of madmen’s ravings.” (§573) Take The Large Bather (1900-1906) for example, Cézanne presents a unique structure on canvas by using simple shapes, lines, and geometric forms with thick impasto. In this way, spatial ambiguity is specifically emphasized. Cézanne creates a visual effect that allowed the bathers in the front sort of merging into the landscape on the back. This is a new concept Cézanne created, called Cubism. Unlike Impressionists highlighting the natural forms, Cézanne instead represents Post-Impressionists to concentrate more on the formal structure. On the one hand, rather than focusing on the objects like the bathers or the trees, Cézanne pays more attention to the structure that creates a new space in the painting, which fits Danto’s transition from IT to RT theory, creating new based on the real things. Hence, that is the reason why the idea of Reality theory is coming out. Speaking of Cézanne’s painting, it corresponds to the transition of IT to RT, making the difference from just mocking the objects to creating something new, which is the exact idea why Danto proposed this theory. What’s more, Cubism became the trend in that period and also supports Danto’s idea of the art world. In other words, “To see something as art requires something the eye cannot decry – an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an art world.” (§579) argued by Danto in his text. As we can see, the Artworld that Danto held out is defined in the historical context with the atmosphere of Reality Theory. Cézanne painted this piece of artwork by creating a new concept – Cubism, which is a fit to Reality Theory, something unique and distinguishable. Furthermore, he is the leading artist of Post-Impressionism, so let alone that his up-to-date paintings also match the historical context at that time. In addition, as long as it is easily recognized by others, RT allowed artists to present art including real objects, which also matches Cézanne’s painting since he includes the bathers and trees, etc. And that is also included in Danto’s theory, “According to it (RT), the artists in question were to be understood not as unsuccessfully imitating real forms but as successfully creating new ones,” (§573) which is exactly how Cézanne presented his work. Most importantly, it is acceptable to examine a painting through its formal properties in RT rather than just judge it based on its quality of how well it can imitate real things. With the structure that Cézanne emphasized, it is rather relevant to that point of view. As a result, even if the Artworld outweighs RT more than IT, artists still could add real objects into their artwork, but rather than focusing on the imitation of real things, they tend to concentrate on how their arts are different from each other. Because of that, we can clearly know that Danto’s theory could serve as a blueprint for Post-Impressionism to present the combination of reality and creativity. It is also the perfect description for Cézanne’s painting since he has something creative that others never think about at that time, which could be easily differentiated from others.

Bad Art

Bad arts, in contrast, unlike good arts, are incomprehensible to the public and ranked at the second level of all arts. As Tolstoy mentioned, “Art cannot be incomprehensible to the great masses only because it is very good” (§115) Therefore, it is obvious that if art is not comprehensible, it is not considered good art. Bad arts primarily contain three main sections, including pride, melancholia, and sexual desire. Since pride is considered a sin in the Bible (which is considered good art), it is reasonable that anything related to this genre would be regarded as bad art. As to sexual desire, to Tolstoy, it is just for animals, not for arts. Therefore, some works of art like Fifty Shadows of Grey or Sex and the City may be considered bad art because they both are related to sexual desire. Intriguingly, either good arts or bad arts should be sincere enough. However, this is not the case for counterfeits, which are even not regarded as arts in Tolstoy’s point of view. Counterfeits are the worst arts compared to good and bad arts. The common markers for counterfeits are borrowing, imitation, striking (shocking), and interesting (§117-118). After explaining all the methods, Tolstoy claimed that “Poetic- means borrowed. All borrowing merely recalls to the reader, spectator, or listener, some dim recollection of artistic impressions received from previous works of art and does not infect with feeling experienced by the artist himself.” (§122) Thus, his argument can be obviously seen that those copycats just remind the audience about the feeling they had before instead of the artist himself creating a new one, and that is counterfeit art. Furthermore, as mentioned above, arts should be understood by everyone, so if art is comprehensible only to a certain class of society, it is also considered counterfeit in Tolstoy’s view.

As mentioned above, Danto emphasizes the meaning of art. Artworks are like real objects on the basic level but with something else. Although it is allowed to imitate real things in real life in Danto’s Artworld, if the artist cannot assimilate the current trend of art or make something creative, it is not qualified as good art. Take Danto’s example – Rauschenberg’s bed, for instance, it is actually just a real bed, so if people regard it just as bad, it is not approved as art. However, if they assume it on the basis of a real thing and include something non-real concept like Brillo Box, it is perfectly acceptable to be categorized as art.

Conclusion

In Tolstoy’s perspective, art could be either good or bad as long as the audience can get a clear emotion that the artist would like to deliver. Yet, in Danto’s art world, it seems that even if the artist clearly delivers the feelings he or she makes in the art, their work of art may still be categorized as non-art if it does not follow the current flow.

Humans always look upon a piece of art and give it meaning or connect it to their own experiences, if art could be nothing related to society, how could we judge that it is a piece of good art? It would be an extreme standard of considering which one is good or bad work if just viewing art by whether it is pure or not related to life and nature, which will probably kill many good pieces of artwork.

In contrast, Danto considered more about how people would view the new artwork. In this way, the brand-new kinds of work could be admired, while old kinds of arts could still serve as good arts since they are different from one and another, which is rather perfect.

By comparing these two different views toward art, we can clearly know how to use different methods to see art in a different way based on these theories. By understanding the feeling of an artist, we can surely notice what he or she would like to deliver, in other words, making these arts more sense to more people. After all, most of the time when we go to the art gallery, we won’t know the exact meaning of the paintings unless we read the description, which let us comprehend the artist and also the messages he wants us to know.

Actually, the standard of defining a piece of good art or bad art depends on how people see it. After all, those standards for art are defined by humans. Someone sets rules, someone agrees, and someone disagrees. Everyone must have their own standard for defining art, so there are actually no right or wrong answers for which art is good and which is bad, it just depends on how people choose to see them.

Reference

Danto, A. C. (1924). What art is? New Haven, NH: Yale University Press.
Danto, A. C. (1964). The Artworld. New York, NY: The Journal of Philosophy.
Tolstoy, L. (1897). What Is Art? London: Bristol Classical Press.
Kardozi, K. (2011). Leo Tolstoy’s “WHAT IS ART”. WordPress.com. Retrieved from https://themovingsilent.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/leo-tolstoys-what-is-art/
Scott, A. (2002). Tolstoy, What is Art? Queequeg’s Crossing. Retrieved from http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/tolstoy.html
Gracyk, T. (2002). Outline of Tolstoy’s What is Art? Minnesota State University Moorhead. Retrieved from http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil%20of%20art/tolstoy.outline.htm
The Art Foundation (2018). Post-Impressionism. The Art Story Modern Art Insight. Retrieved from https://www.theartstory.org/movement-post-impressionism.htm
Young, B. (2018). Danto on Indiscernibility. Gadfly Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.thegadflymagazine.org/home-1/danto-on-indiscernibility

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