Silbajoris: "Tolstoy's Aesthetics and His Art"

Chapter 1T's art is based on the reciprocity of reality and immagination. 14 Early on T fought with the idea that the space between the artists feelings and the world "out there" might be bridged by appealing to the reader's on imagination. 17 The question for T was to figure out how to make more than the educated man understand what he was trying to do in life and in art. This is part of the basis for his need to include only the art that infects all. 24 T distinhushes himself from Rouseau. R rejected all mankind and T only rejects the Christian. 33 T's feelings for R might be at the root of T;s infection theroy. he felt so strongly about what R wrote about that he felt that it was art and for anything else to be put on the same pedstal it must evoke in the receiver the same feeling. 35 T's need to find something for the non aristocratic, for the peasants in his art, began no later than in the Sebastople sketches when he discerns the difference between what the peasant soldier knows and the authories don't know about how to win the war. 36 There is a close connection bewteen T's religious revalaations and his aestthic ideas. 38
Chapter 2
T believed in the need for no education to understand true art and he got this in part from his work on Yasnaya Pol. where he worked with the children and they understood the beauty of nature, yet had not ed. 54 In order for someone to understand the art they too must live a certain quality of life and if they can then they will understand a certain quality of art - it is this quality of art that is the only true art 60 It is the 'wee bit' that t saw in the children's stories and he used himself when writing - the principle of the essential detail. 62 Thus in the writing where he used much more complex literary principles did he decide that they were worthless later in life. 62 For t change and continuity are a complex give and take that contiues in him forever. 67
Chapter 3
The third influence on t's arsthetics is the moral and phiosophical change he went through in 1880s. 68 that which kept him from killing himself is that which helped form his theory. 67 The same metaphysical despair T found himself in was what he wrote in Death of I.I. and in Levin's ending when he too wonders what he is going to do. 70 Instead of cosmic aloneness, T finds in writing the Confession the cosmic connectedness of it all and like Pierre in W and P he understands the world as he now needs to live it and how it all relates to it and him to it. 71 What T doesn't like in civilization is what t doesn't like in art - that it is constructed for and by the exploiters that have not held up their end of the bargain of civilization. 73 T also understood that which was simple as a very complex thing. the simplest art is the best, but it is in effect very complex. 76 T doesn't speak of Science and art in the same way that we understand them. He is talking about the great thrust of mankind toward greater moral and emotional force. 78 T's idea of art is not a thing, but a process, an act of communication, something that is happening. 81 The simplest feeling that creates art is like enstrangement - the act of making something conscious and strange something that is not because of its familiarity.Like Levin working the fields or Vronsky on the horse knowing inside him that somehting is wrong bewteen he and Anna. T's assessment of what is science is basically the same as it is for art - if it doesn't serve the needs of mankind then it is not science. 87 this is unfortunately not supportable by objective fact and is and ecoding of an attitude, not an assertion. 87 Unfortunately we don't really learn what is science or art from T because it doesn't allow for an analysis of itself. 87 The only three things that define beauty and art are based out of the life of christ - individuality, clarity and sicncerety. 96
Chapter 4
Art for him had to set a moral standard and serve the greater search for truth and could not regard it as an exercise in relativity. It also had to be found in the wisdom of the heart. 99 He sets out to defien art as it relates to our emotionss and develops it around our moral and universal responsibility. 101 The reason why we cannot use goodness, truth and beauty to define art is that they rest on the idea that what we see is based on something else or that they are defined by those in power. 103 T looks at art as an sctivity and thus is not what it is, but what it does/ 107 Because T used the theory that art must be immediately recognizable and the upper classes don't have this in them necessarily, but the peasants do, then it also becoemes a question of which class understands right and wrong better - religion becomes a question of class. 112 true art, like everything else deals with life itself and not with the recording of its traditions. 113 T's three most anit-sex works, Ressurection, KSonata and the Devil were all being completed at the time He was working on WHat is Art. 126 If you follow enough of T's arguments they all come around to describe T more than anything else. It is an intense and powerful statement of Self-realization and functions like his art. 133 He defends his own ancient morals against civilization.
Chapter 5
T is Simonson in Resurrection. He is alone and concentrated in purpose to convery they image of truth universally and sincerely and his commitment he calls love. 134 A pilgram listening for the simple people to the voice of god. 135 He sets himself as alone standing between god and Mother Earth. Silbadoris speaks of Olenin from Cossacks as looking at art. 137 T is this same pilgrim trying to figure out what his purpose displays this in Waht is Art. 138 Also in War and Peace when the soldiers break into spontaneous song. 139 And Three Deaths. 139 And Natasha's dance in W and P. 140 The opera and Ts; estrangement also. 141 Resurrection compared to Shakespeare and the disharmony of a play or non-play on words. 144 AK and her premonition compared to King Lear - T dispolays the heart of a person really in panic, not jsut a play. 145 Wagner and Levin as artiface. 147 KSonata and hate and music - it is false and engenders passions. 149 Society is the same ocnstruct of artiface as seen in WandP and AK. 150 AK as the end of human omunication. 151 Mikhailov in AK speaks as T on art and falsty. 152 In T there is little lit, but a lot of painting and music. In AK there is even a Vronsky to show what false art is. 153 Art in AK is used to show how much Vronsky maybe loved AK. 154 In W and P boris and Julie read Poor Liza, but it may just be any sad tale. 155 AK reading her English novel and the storm outside and she is tranported to another time - it is stupid. Her english happiness at Vronsky's estate show her heart and the bitter taste it left. 156 Her death is just living out an english novel. 157 AK's portait and her dying love are contrasted. 158 The paintings are there to show the lack of real heart. 158 Vronsky's painting shows how much he has her body, but doesn't know her soul. 159 Stiva and Pushkin and poetry. 160 T uses art to show what he thinks of people in his tales. 161 T was trying to dispell the idea that the world is us, and push that we are the world. 163 T works with metaphore not like other artists, but her infuses details to link up events where they will evoke the greatest emotional asssociations for ther reader and the character. 169 This is Levin in the grass and prince Andrei wehn he is injured and is similar to Pierrre's watery globe. 169