Tolstoy’s View of Art

Throughout Tolstoy’s paper, he describes three different ideas in which to measure the communication and infection that art gives between the artist and the audience. Tolstoy believes that art is all about infection and expression, which together is the union. The three different ways to measure the art is on the “greater or lesser individuality” or how unique the piece of art is, “greater or lesser clearness” (clearness being how well it communicates its feelings to the audience from the artist), and the third being ” on the sincerity of the artist” for the greater the sincerity the better the artist will be able to have more clarity and therefore infection. Another way that Tolstoy describes art is that it is natural. He believes that art happens to each of us naturally when we are able to connect ourselves with a certain piece of art. I do believe that this is one good way of evaluating art. Tolstoy’s view sounds beautiful and I love the way that he describes art as a union between the artist and audience. I have felt this in my own life with movies, books, and even music. But even though I do think that Tolstoy’s view is correct, I believe that there is more to art that just the connection. I believe that when people view art, it makes them feel more whole as a person, it makes them feel happier. Sometimes art is just the sense of feeling happy, to me. One example of this is when I view scenery or animals, I often just feel happy and fuller seeing these things. But when I view the scenery or animals, I feel a connection to God (which one would call the Creator of life if they so believed this to be true). A second example of how we could feel connected through art is through music. Throughout my life, music has carried me through my abusive struggles with my father and taught me to stay strong. My favorite artist is Mariah Carey and she has multiple songs that I would listen to through that period of time and it would make me feel like a regular person who’s life wasn’t worth nothing.

Word Count: 368

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