“We are accustomed to regard as art only what we read, hear, see in theatres, concerts and exhibitions, buildings, statues, poems, novels… But all this is only a small portion of the art by which we communicate with one another in life. The whole of human life is filled with works of art of various kinds, from lullabies, jokes, mimicry, home decoration, clothing, utensils, to church services and solemn processions. All this is the activity of art. Thus we call art, in the narrow sense of the word, not the entire human activity that conveys feelings, but only that which we for some reason single out from all this activity and to which we give special significance.”
I like this quote from Tolstoy’s essay What is Art? It challenges what we would necessarily think of as art, including both the formal and the informal and spontaneous. His theory states that art is communication; I would not normally think that a lullabye is art, but I would probably call it beautiful, and I would say that it is definitely communication between an artist and audience, even if its only an audience of one. But he excludes these everyday activities from what is formally art, despite that these things might rank highly using his criteria for judging art.
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