such restraint, is so free from any superfluous detail, that the story may be told to any circle and will be equally comprehensible and touching to everyone. But not such are the feelings of Don Quixote or of Moliere’s heroes (though Moliere is perhaps the most universal, and therefore the most excellent, artist of modern times), nor of Pickwick and his friends. These feelings are not common to all ^ 111 this picture the spectators in the Roman Amphitheatre are turning down their thumbs to show that they wish the vanquished gladiator to be killed. — Trans.
WHAT IS ART?
men but very exceptional, and therefore, to make them infectious, the authors have surrounded them with abundant details of time and place. And this abundance of detail makes the stories difficult of comprehension to all people not living within reach of the conditions described by the author.
The author of the novel of Joseph did not need to describe in detail, as would be done nowadays, the blood- stained coat of Joseph, the dwelling and dress of Jacob, the pose and attire of Potiphar’s wife, and how, adjusting the bracelet on her left arm, she said, “ Come to me,” and so on, because the subject-matter of feelings in this novel is so strong that all details, except the most essential, — such as that Joseph went out into another room to weep, — are superfluous, and would only hinder the transmission of feelings. And therefore this novel is accessible to all men, touches people of all nations and classes, young and old, and has lasted to our times, and will yet last for thousands of years to come. But strip the best novels of our times of their details, and what will remain?
It is therefore impossible in modern literature to indicate works fully satisfying the demands of universality. Such works as exist are, to a great extent, spoilt by what is usually called “realism,” but would be better termed “provincialism,” in art.
In music the same occurs as in verbal art, and for similar reasons. In consequence of the poorness of the feeling they contain, the melodies of the modern composers are amazingly empty and insignificant. And to strengthen the impression produced by these empty melodies, the new musicians pile complex modulations on to each trivial melody, not only in their own national manner, but also in the way characteristic of their own exclusive circle and particular musical school. Melody — every melody — is free, and may be understood of all men; but as soon as it is bound up 70 WHAl IS ART?
70 WHAl IS ART?
with a particular harmony, it ceases to he accessible except to people trained to such harmony, and it becomes strange, not only to common men of another nationality, hut to all who do not belong to the circle whose members have accustomed themselves to certain forms of harmonisation. So that music, like poetry, travels in a vicious circle. Trivial and exclusive melodies, in order to make them attrac- tive, are laden with harmonic, rhythmic, and orchestral com- plications, and thus become yet more exclusive, and far from being universal are not even national, i.e, they are not comprehensible to the whole people hut only to some people.
In music, besides marches and dances by various composers, which satisfy the demands of universal art, one can indicate very few works of this class: Bach’s famous violin ana, Chopin’s nocturne in E flat major, and perhaps a dozen hits (not whole pieces, but parts) selected from the works of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, and Chopin. ^ Although in painting the same thing is repeated as in poetry and in music, — namely, that in order to make them more interesting, works weak in conception are surrounded by minutely studied accessories of time and place, which give them a temporary and local interest but make them ^ While offering as examples of art those that seem to me the best, I attach no special importance to my selection; for, besides being insufficiently informed in all branches of art, I belong to the class of people whose taste has, by false training, been perverted. And therefore my old, inured habits may cause me to err, and I may mistake for absolute merit the impression a work produced on me in my youth. My only purpose in mentioning examples of works of this or that class is to make my meaning clearer, and to show how, with my present views, I understand excellence in art in relation to its subject-matter. I must, moreover, mention that I consign my own artistic productions to the category of bad art, excepting the story God sees the Truth, which seeks a place in the first class, and The Prisoner of the Caucasus, which belongs to the second.
WHAT IS ART?
less universal, — still, in painting, more than in the other spheres of art, may he found works satisfying the demands of universal Christian art; that is to say, there are more works expressing feelings in which all men may participate.
In the arts of painting and sculpture, all pictures and statues in so - called genre style, depictions of animals, landscapes and caricatures with subjects comprehensible to everyone, and also all kinds of ornaments, are universal in subject-matter. Such productions in painting and sculpture are very numerous {e.g. china dolls), hut for the most part such objects (for instance, ornaments of all kinds) are either not considered to be art or are con- sidered to be art of a low quality. In reality all such objects, if only they transmit a true feeling experienced by the artist and comprehensible to everyone (however insignificant it may seem to us to be) are works of real, good, Christian art.
I fear it will here be urged against me that having denied that the conception of beauty can supply a standard for works of art, I contradict myself by acknowledging orna- ments to be works of good art. The reproach is unjust, for the subject-matter of all kinds of ornamentation consists not in the beauty, but in the feeling (of admiration of, and delight in, the combination of lines and colours) which the artist has experienced and with which he infects the spectator. Art remains what it was and what it must be: nothing but the infection by one man of another, or of others, with the feelings experienced by the infector. Among those feelings is the feeling of delight at what pleases the sight. Objects pleasing the sight may be such as please a small or a large number of people, or such as please all men. And ornaments for the most part are of the latter kind. A landscape representing a very unusual view, or a genre picture of a special subject, may not please everyone, but ornaments, from Yakutsk ornaments to WHAT IS ART?
Greek ones, are intelligible to everyone and evoke a simi feeling of admiration in all, and therefore this despi^ kind of art should, in Christian society, be esteemed above exceptional, pretentious pictures and sculptures.
So that there are only two kinds of good Christian a all the rest of art not comprised in these two divisi( should be acknowledged to be bad art, deserving not to encouraged but to be driven out, denied and despised, being art not uniting but dividing people. Such, in liter art, are all novels and poems which transmit Church patriotic feelings, and also exclusive feelings pertaining о to the class of the idle rich; such as aristocratic honc^ satiety, spleen, pessimism, and refined and vicious fceli flowing from sex-love — quite incomprehensible to the gi majority of mankind.
In painting лѵе must similarly place in the class of art all the Church, patriotic, and exclusive pictures; the pictures representing the amusements and allurem( of a rich and idle life; all the so-called symbolic pictures which the very meaning of the symbol is comprehens only to the people of a certain circle; and, above all, picti with voluptuous subjects — all that odious female nudi. '. which fills all the exhibitions and galleries. And to ■ class belongs almost all the chamber and opera music of times, — beginning especially from Beethoven (Schunu Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner), — by its subject-matter devotee the expression of feelings accessible only to people have developed in themselves an unhealthy, nervous ir tion evoked by this exclusive, artificial, and com music.
“ What! the Ninth Symphony not a good work of a I hear exclaimed by indignant voices.
And I reply: Most certainly it is not. All that I have written I have written with the sole purpose of finding a clear and reasonable criterion by which to judge the WHAT IS ART?
merits of works of art. And this criterion, coinciding with the indications of plain and sane sense, indubitably shows me that that symphony by Beethoven is not a good work of art. Of course, to people educated in the adoration of certain productions and of their authors, to people whose taste has been perverted just hy being educated in such adoration, the acknowledgment that such a cele- brated work is had is amazing and strange. But how are лѵе to escape the indications of reason and of common sense 1 Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is considered a great лѵогк of art. To verify its claim to he such, I must first ask myself whether this work transmits the highest religious feeling 1 I reply in the negative, for music in itself cannot transmit those feelings j and therefore I ask myself next, Since this work does not belong to the highest kind of religious art, has it the other characteristic of the good art of our time, — the quality of uniting all men in one common feeling: does it rank as Christian universal art 1 And again I have no option hut to reply in the negative; for not only do I not see how the feelings transmitted hy this work could unite people not specially trained to submit themselves to its complex hypnotism, hut I am unable to imagine to myself a crowd of normal people who could understand anything of this long, confused, and artificial production, except short snatches which are lost in a sea of what is incomprehensible. And therefore, whether I like it or not, I am compelled to conclude that this work belongs to the rank of bad art. It is curious to note in this connection, that attached to the end of this very symphony is a poem of Schiller’s which (though somewhat obscurely) expresses this very thought, namely, that feeling (Schiller speaks only of the feeling of gladness) unites people and evokes love in them. But though this poem is sung at the end of the symphony, the music does not accord with the thought expressed in the verses; for the music is exclusive and does WHAT IS ART?
not unite all men, but unites only a few, dividing them off from the rest of mankind.
And, just in this same way, in all branches of art, many and many works considered great by the upper classes of our society will have to be judged. By this one sure criterion лѵе shall have to judge the celebrated Divine Comedy and Jerusalem Delivered, and a great part of Shakespeare’s and Goethe’s works, and in painting every representation of miracles, including Kaphael’s “ Transfiguration,” etc.
Whatever the work may be and however it may have been extolled, we have first to ask whether this work is one of real art or a counterfeit. Having acknowledged, on the basis of the indication of its infectiousness even to a small class of people, that a certain production belongs to the realm of art, it is necessary, on the basis of the indication of its accessibility, to decide the next question. Does this work belong to the category of bad, exclusive art, opposed to religious perception, or to Christian art, uniting people? And having acknowledged an article to belong to real Christian art, we must then, according to whether it transmits the feelings flowing from love to God and man, or merely the simple feelings uniting all men, assign it a place in the ranks of religious art or in those of universal art.
Only on the basis of such verification shall we find it possible to select from the whole mass of what, in our society, claims to be art, those works which form real, important, necessary spiritual food, and to separate them from all the harmful and useless art, and from the counter- feits of art which surround us. Only on the basis of such verification shall we be able to rid ourselves of the pernicious results of harmful art, and to avail ourselves of that bene- ficent action which is the purpose of true and good art, and which is indispensable for the spiritual life of man and of humanity.
CHAPTER XVII Art is one of two organs of human progress. By words man interchanges thoughts, by the forms of art he interchanges feelings, and this with all men, not only of the present time, but also of the past and the future. It is natural to human beings to employ both these organs of intercom- munication, and therefore the perversion of either of them must cause evil results to the society in which it occurs. And these results will be of two kinds: first, the absence, in that society, of the work which should be performed by the organ; and secondly, the harmful activity of the per- verted organ. And just these results have shown them- selves in our society. The organ of art has been perverted, and therefore the upper classes of society have, to a great extent, been deprived of the work that it should have performed. The diffusion in our society of enormous quantities of, on the one hand, those counterfeits of art which only serve to amuse and corrupt people, and, on the other hand, of works of insignificant, exclusive art, mistaken for the highest art, have perverted most men’s capacity to he infected by true works of art, and have thus deprived them of the possibility of experiencing the highest feelings to which mankind has attained, and which can only be transmitted from man to man by art.
All the best that has been done in art by man remains strange to people who lack the capacity to be infected by art, and is replaced either by spurious counterfeits of art or by insignificant art, which they mistake for real art.
WHAT /S ATT?
People of our time and of our society are delighted with Baudelaires, Verlaines, Moreases, Ibsens, and Maeterlincks in poetry; with Monets, Manets, Puvis de Chavannes, Burne-Joneses, Stucks, and Bocklins in painting; with Wagners, Listzs, Eichard Strausses, in music; and they are no longer capable of comprehending either the highest or the simplest art.
In the upper classes, in consequence of this loss of capacity to be infected by works of art, people grow up, are educated, and live, lacking the fertilising, improving influ- ence of art, and therefore not only do not advance towards perfection, do not become kinder, but, on the contrary, possessing highly-developed external means of civilisation, they yet tend to become continually more savage, more coarse, and more cruel.
Such is the result of the absence from our society of the activity of that essential organ — art. But the consequences of the perverted activity of that organ are yet more harmful. And they are numerous.
The first consequence, plain for all to see, is the enormous expenditure of the labour of working people on things which are not only useless, but which, for the most part, are harm- ful; and more than that, the waste of priceless human lives on this unnecessary and harmful business. It is terrible to consider with what intensity, and amid what privations, millions of ]эеор1е — who lack time and opportunity to attend to what they and their families urgently require — labour for 10, 12, or 14 hours on end, and even at night, setting the type for pseudo-artistic books which spread vice among mankind, or working for theatres, concerts, exhibitions, and picture galleries, which, for the most part, also serve vice; but it is yet more terrible to reflect that lively, kindly children, capable of all that is good, are devoted from their early years to such tasks as these: that for 6, 8, or 10 hours a day, and for 10 or 15 years, some of them should WHAT IS ART?
play scales and exercises j others should twist their limbs, walk on their toes, and lift their legs above their heads; a third set should sing solfeggios; a fourth set, showing themselves off in all manner of ways, should pronounce verses; a fifth set should draw from busts or from nude models and paint studies; a sixth set should write compo- sitions according to the rules of certain periods; and that in these occupations, unworthy of a human being, which are often continued long after full maturity, they should waste their physical and mental strength and lose all perception of the meaning of life. It is often said that it is horrible and pitiful to see little acrobats putting their legs over their necks, hut it is not less pitiful to see children of 10 giving concerts, and it is still worse to see schoolboys of 10 who, as a preparation for literary work, have learnt by heart the exceptions to the Latin grammar. These people not only grow physically and mentally deformed, but also morally deformed, and become incapable of doing anything really needed by man. Occupying in society the role of amusers of the rich, they lose their sense of human dignity, and develop in themselves such a passion for public applause that they are always a prey to an inflated and unsatisfied vanity which grows in them to diseased dimensions, and they ex- pend their mental strength in efforts to obtain satisfaction for this passion. And what is most tragic of all is that these people, who for the sake of art are spoilt for life, not only do not render service to this art, but, on the contrary, inflict the greatest harm on it. They are taught in academies, schools, and conservatoires how to counterfeit art, and by learning this they so pervert themselves that they quite lose the capacity to produce works of real art, and become purveyors of that counterfeit, or trivial, or depraved art which floods our society. This is the first obvious consequence of the perversion of the organ of art.
12 WHAT IS ATT?
The second consequence is that the productions of amuse- ment-art, which are prepared in such terrific quantities by the armies of professional artists, enable the rich people of our times to live the lives they do, lives not only unnatural hut in contradiction to the humane principles these people themselves profess. To live as do the rich, idle people, especially the women, far from nature and from animals, in artificial conditions, with muscles atrophied or mis- developed by gymnastics, and with enfeebled vital energy would he impossible were it not for what is called art — for this occupation and amusement which hides from them the meaninglessness of their lives, and saves them from the dulness that oppresses them. Take from all these people the theatres, concerts, exhibitions, piano - playing, songs, and novels, with which they now fill their time in full confidence that occupation with these things is a very refined, eesthetical, and therefore good occupation; take from the patrons of art who buy pictures, assist musicians, and are acquainted with writers, their r61e of protectors of that important matter art, and they will not he able to continue such a life, but will all he eaten up by ennui and spleen, and will become conscious of the meaninglessness and wrongness of their present mode of life. Only occupation with what, among them, is con- sidered art, renders it possible for them to continue to live on, infringing all natural conditions, without per- ceiving the emptiness and cruelty of their lives. And this support afforded to the false manner of life pursued by the rich is the second consequence, and a serious one, of the perversion of art.
The third consequence of the perversion of art is the perplexity produced in the minds of children and of plain folk. Among people not perverted by the false theories of our society, among workers and children, there exists a very definite conception of what people may he respected WHAT IS ART?
WHAT IS ART?
and praised for. In the minds of peasants and children the ground for praise or eulogy can only he either physical strength: Hercules, the heroes and conquerors; or moral, spiritual, strength: Sakya Muni’ giving up a beautiful wife and a kingdom to save mankind, Christ going to the cross for the truth he professed, and all the martyrs and the saints. Both are understood by peasants and children. They understand that physical strength must he respected, for it compels respect,- and the moral strength of goodness an unperverted man cannot fail to respect, because all his spiritual being drav/s him towards it. But these people, children and peasants, suddenly perceive that besides those praised, respected, and rewarded for physical or moral strength, there are others who are praised, extolled, and rewarded much more than the heroes of strength and virtue, merely because they sing well, compose verses, or dance. They see that singers, composers, painters, ballet- dancers, earn millions of roubles and receive more honour than the saints do: and peasants and children are per- plexed.
When 50 years had elapsed after Pushkin’s death, and, simultaneously, the cheap edition of his works began to circulate among the people and a monument was erected to him in Moscow, I received more than a dozen letters from different peasants asking why Pushkin was raised to such dignity? And only the other day a literate ^ man from Saratoff called on me who had evidently gone out of his mind over this very question. He was on his way to Moscow to expose the clergy for having taken part in raising a “ monament ” to Mr. Pushkin.
Indeed one need only imagine to oneself what the state of ^ In Russian it is customary to make a distinction between literate and illiterate people, i.e. between those who can and those лѵЬо can- not read. Literate in this sense does not imply tliat the man wouhl speak or write correctly. — Trans.
WHAT IS ART?
I So WHAT IS ART?
I So mind of such a man of the people must he when he learns, from such rumours and newspapers as reach him, that the clergy, the Government officials, and all the best people in Bussia are triumphantly unveiling a statue to a great man, the benefactor, the pride of Eussia — Pushkin, of whom till then he had never heard. From all sides he reads or hears about this, and he naturally supposes that if such honours are rendered to anyone, then without doubt he must have done something extraordinary — either some feat of strength or of goodness. He tries to learn who Pushkin was, and having discovered that Pushkin was neither a hero nor a general, hut was a private person and a writer, he comes to the conclusion that Pushkin must have been a holy man and a teacher of goodness, and he hastens to read or to hear his life and works. But what must he his perplexity when he learns that Pushkin was a man of more than easy morals, who was killed in a duel, i.e. when attempting to murder another man, and that all his service consisted in writing verses about love, which were often very indecent.
That a hero, or Alexander the Great, or Genghis Khan, or Kapoleon were great, he understands, because any one of them could have crushed him and a thousand like him; that Buddha, Socrates, and Christ were great he also understands, for he knows and feels that he and all men should be such as they were; hut why a man should be great because he лvrote verses about the love of women he cannot make out.
A similar perplexity must trouble the brain of a Breton or Korman peasant who hears that a monument, “ une statue ” (as to the Madonna), is being erected to Baudelaire, and reads, or is told, what the contents of his Fleurs du Mol are; or, more amazing still, to erlaine, when he learns the story of that man’s wretched, vicious life, and reads his verses. And what confusion it must cause in the brains of peasants when they learn that some Patti or Taglioni WHAT IS ART?
i8i is paid <£10,000 for a season, or that a painter gets as much for a picture, or that authors of novels describing love-scenes have received even more than that.
And it is the same with children. I remember how I passed through this stage of amazement and stupefaction, and only reconciled myself to this exaltation of artists to the level of heroes and saints by lowering in my own estimation the importance of moral excellence, and by attributing a false, unnatural meaning to works of art. And a similar confusion must occur in the soul of each child and each man of the people when he learns of the strange honours and rewards that are lavished on artists. This is the third consequence of the false relation in лѵЬісІі our society stands towards art. ^ The fourth consequence is that people of the upper classes, more and more frequently encountering the contra- dictions between beauty and goodness, put the ideal of beauty first, thus freeing themselves from the demands of morality. These people, reversing the roles, instead of admitting, as is really the case, that the art they serve is an antiquated affair, allege that morality is an antiquated affair, which can have no importance for people situated on that high plane of development on which they opine that they are situated.
This result of the false relation to art showed itself in our society long ago j but recently, with its prophet h[ietzsche and his adherents, and Avith the decadents and certain English aesthetes who coincide Avith him, it is being expressed with especial impudence. The decadents, and aesthetes of the type at one time represented by Oscar Wilde, select as a theme for their productions the denial of morality and the laudation of vice.
This art has partly generated, and partly coincides Avith, a similar philosophic theory. I recently received from America a book entitled “ The Survival of the Fittest: WHAT IS ART?