Note on Tol-stoi’s “Whatis Art? ”

“infect” another, but you don’t call it art. A firemay communicate some of its warmth to thosewho are cold, but we don’t call it art. An angryman may punch you and infect you with hisanger, so that you punch him in return, but wedon’t call it art—unless the art of self-defenceis allowed to be an art.

It is true one is aware of the sort of physicaltest of good poetry—that it causes a shiverdown the spinal column; and it is generally atrue one, but whether it represents the shiverfelt by the poet in writing one is not quitecertain.

Besides, surely a work of art may com-municate or suggest something more than wasactually in the mind or emotions of the artistat the time, as by the power of association itmay awaken different thoughts and feelings inmany different minds.

To limit fine art only to those forms whichare capable of appealing to everybody, andwhich communicate feelings and ideas whichcan be shared by humanity at large, must neces-sarily limit it to few and simple forms and types.No doubt Tolstoi fully realizes this, and heeven recognizes that the art of the most uni-versal appeal at the present day is apt to berather trivial in form, such as “a song, or anamusing jest, intelligible to every one, or atouching story, or a drawing, or a little doll ”(p. 165), and he elsewhere says that the producerof such things is doing far more good than theelaboration of a work to be appreciated only bya few.

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