Gabby Brezovsky "Art as Communication"

Leo Tolstoy views art as an essential and highly relevant form of expression. “For Tolstoy, art is like language in general: a means of communication. He thinks of language as fundamentally a means for conveying one person’s thoughts to another” (Wartenberg, 102). The common conception that art must be beautiful contradicts Tolstoy’s view of art. In Tolstoy’s opinion “art is no less central to human existence [than speech], for it makes accessible the feelings of other human beings” (Wartenberg, 102). I agree with Tolstoy’s stance on art. A work doesn’t necessarily have to be aesthetically pleasing in order for it to be considered art. For example, sometimes art can be disturbing or even upsetting to the audience. It is the artist’s prerogative to express their feelings and communicate those feelings to their intended audience.
In Chapter 8 of “The Nature of Art,” Tolstoy provides the reader with numerous definitions of beauty and art. He claims that many of the widely-accepted definitions of art do not fully encompass what art truly is. Tolstoy writes, “In order to define any human activity, one must understand its meaning and significance” (Wartenberg, 105). We tie beauty and art so closely together that we are not able to fully grasp what art really is. Although Tolstoy suggests that we separate beauty from art, (because art is so much more than something pleasing to us as individuals) he doesn’t really go into what we can do to gain a true and sincere appreciation of art for what it is. How are we supposed to go about doing this? Does there need to be a reconstruction of the definition of art?