Difference Between Art And Tolstoy

Throughout many centuries, art is portrayed as the production of an object which supply us a particular kind of pleasure. Philosophers claim that aesthetic emotion is based on perception. It can be determined by an individual’s focus on a specific object. Bell defines art as significant form whereas Tolstoy defines art as communication of feelings. Bell believed all objects provoke aesthetic emotion by the elements of an artwork but Tolstoy would disagree. According to Bell, visual art evokes an emotional response from the audience through its qualities. In the excerpt Art, he writes, “The starting point for all systems of aesthetics must be the personal experience of a peculiar emotion. The objects that provoke this emotion we call works

Tolstoy believes art is the interaction between the artist and the recipient. In the excerpt What is Art?, Tolstoy said that, “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” (Tolstoy 178). Verbal communication unifies both the artist and others who perceive the work. Tolstoy theorized that when “a man suffers, manifesting his sufferings by groans and spasms, and thus suffering transmits itself to other people; a man expresses his feelings of admiration, devotion, fear, respect, or love to certain objects, persons, or phenomena, and others are infected by the same feelings of admiration, devotion, fear, respect, or love to the same objects, persons, or phenomena” (Tolstoy 178). By transmitting the thoughts from one individual to another, they are capable of experiencing those feelings

Bell opposes this view and argues that there is neither good nor bad art. In Bell’s excerpt he states, “In pure aesthetics we have no right, neither is there any necessity, to pry behind the object into the state of mind of him who made it” (Bell 188). Bell claims individuals should express themselves on what they think is art, without being judged by others. Good art have a strong impact on others because it expresses its meaning clearly with a high degree of sincerity whereas bad art lacks unity and deficient in clarity. When the recipient feels more pleasure, they would be deeply infected by the artist. But if the artist fail to transmit the feelings they lived through, the recipient would repel. Tolstoy emphasizes that “the presence in various degrees of these three conditions: individuality, clearness, and sincerity, decides the merit of a work of art, as art, apart from which they fulfill the first, the second, and the third of these conditions” (Tolstoy 181). Tolstoy states that when we successful transmit our emotions to another individual, it brings people together as one. He concludes that art is extremely important to human life because it teaches us how to communicate our thoughts clearly and sincerely. In Cynthia Freeland’s But is it art, a philosopher named Immanuel Kant