Tolstoy and Nietzche on Art

Tolstoy describes how real art “infects” the audience with the artist’s feelings. His description reminds me of Danto’s claim that for a work to be art an audience must appreciate it as such. For Tolstoy, real art stirs up emotions in people and provides them a glimpse of the artist’s emotions and experiences. He captures a definition of art that allows the ordinary public to recognize art. Further, Tolstoy identifies sincerity as an important attribute of an artist. This quality allows for an audience to better connect with the artwork. It is like the artist has a conversation with the individual audience member. Tolstoy provides a clean, sensible explanation of what is real art; whereas, Nietzche scours the inner turmoil of the human mind for the identification of art as a product of a dream or ecstasy. It seems like Nietzche explores the extremes of the human mind, while Tolstoy generally describes a universal idea of human emotional reaction to another human’s expression through art.

Nietzche relates principium individuationis to Apollo and a world of illusion and dreams. Then, he goes on to describe how enjoyment taken from the destruction of principium individuationis is comparable to Dionysus and a chaotic world. While this seems to describe letting go of a rational, ordered view of the world for a more emotional and turbulent one, I do not think it is quite the same thing as Tolstoy’s infectious nature of art. Nietzche focuses on competing and complex forces of the human mind. It feels like human thoughts are a battle ground for the opposing influences of the worlds that Apollo and Dionysus represent. Tolstoy seems to have identified a much clearer and straightforward idea of how people recognize and appreciate art. Tolstoy claims that emotions and feelings are critical to successful art, and I think that Nietzche would classify such reactions as Dionysian. However, something that is Dionysian carries a description with words like intoxicating and ecstasies. I find it hard to see the kind of genuine sincerity Tolstoy discusses with regard to art in a Dionysian world, even though it is clearly missing from an Apollonian world.