In order to make a work of art perfect, what the artist says is brand-new, important to everyone, beautiful and heartfelt, so what the artist says is completely true.
In order to make what the artist says brand-new and important, the artist must be a person with moral cultivation, so he is not living a very selfish life, but a participant in human life.
In order to make what an artist says beautiful, he needs to master his own skills, so that when writing, he seldom thinks about the laws of this skill, just as one seldom thinks about the laws of mechanics when walking.
In order to do this, artists should never look at their own works repeatedly and appreciate them, or aim at skills, just as people who walk should not think of their own gait and appreciate it.
In order to express the inner needs of the soul and speak from the heart, an artist, first, should not care about many trivial things, so as not to prevent him from truly loving something worthy of love; Second, we must love ourselves and love with our own hearts, not with others' hearts, and do not love what others recognize or think is worthy of love. In order to do this, artists should be like Balaam. The envoy came to see him, and he waited for God's will alone in order to say only what God commanded him. But artists should not be tempted by gifts like Balaam. At that time, he went to see the king against God's will, but he could not even see the donkey he was riding. He was fascinated by greed and vanity.
The degree of perfection of the following three kinds of works of art determines that the advantages of some works are different from others. Works can be (1) meaningful, beautiful, insincere and true; It can be (2) significant, unpleasant, insincere and untrue; It can be (3) meaningless, beautiful, sincere, true, and other various combinations.
These works have their own merits, but they are not perfect works of art, only the content is significant, novel and beautifully presented, and the artist's attitude towards his object is sincere, so it is true. Only such works are perfect works of art .. Such works, whether in the past or in the future, are always rare. As for all other works, of course, they are not perfect. According to the three basic conditions of art, it can be divided into three categories: (1) excellent works with remarkable content, (2) excellent works with beautiful form and (3) sincere and true excellent works, but each of these three categories has not reached the same perfection in the other two aspects.
Together, these three categories are close to perfect art, where there is art, there is bound to be. Young artists' works often win with sincerity, but the content is empty and the form is more or less beautiful. Older artists are just the opposite; The works of diligent professional artists are good in form, but often lack content and sincere attitude.
According to these three aspects of art, there are three main wrong artistic theories. According to these theories, a work on the edge of art without these three conditions is regarded not only as a work, but also as a model of art. One theory holds that the advantages of a work of art mainly depend on its content, even if it lacks elegant form and sincere attitude. This is the so-called tendency theory.
Another theory holds that the advantages of a work of art depend on its form, even if its content is empty and the artist's attitude towards the work is not sincere. This is the theory of art for art's sake. The third theory holds that the whole problem lies in sincerity and truth. No matter how empty the content is and how imperfect the form is, as long as the artist likes what he shows, the work is artistic. This theory is called realism theory.
Based on these erroneous theories, there are no longer one or two kinds of works of art in every field as in the past, but the so-called works of art in Qian Qian appear in all artistic fields in every capital (where there are many idle people) every year.
In contemporary times, people who want to engage in artistic creation are not waiting for the important and novel content they really like to appear in their hearts, but are given an appropriate form because of their love. Instead, according to the first theory, they capture the content that was popular in his mind at that time and praised by smart people and give it an artistic form as much as possible. Or according to the second theory, choose the object that he can best express his skills and try his best to patiently create the works of art he thinks; Or according to the third theory, when he gets a pleasant impression, he takes what he likes as the object of his work and thinks it will be a work of art because it is his favorite. Therefore, there are countless so-called works of art that can be made all the time like the products of any craftsman, because there will always be popular and fashionable opinions in society. As long as you are patient, you can always learn any skills, and anyone will always like anything.
As a result, a strange situation has emerged in contemporary times. Works that are expected to become works of art are all over the world. The only difference between them and craftsmen's products is that they are not only useless, but often just harmful.
This leads to a bizarre phenomenon, which obviously shows the disorder of artistic concept. For example, there are no two diametrically opposed opinions on a so-called work of art, both of which come from the same educated authority. This has also produced an amazing phenomenon, that is, most people indulge in the most stupid, useless and often immoral activities, that is, making and reading books, making and watching paintings, making and enjoying musicals, plays and concertos, and completely sincerely believe that what they are doing is a very smart, useful and noble thing.
Contemporary people seem to say to themselves that works of art are good and beneficial and must be done more. Indeed, if there are more of them, of course it will be good. Unfortunately, what can only be customized is some works that are reduced to craftsman product level because the three conditions of art are not available or separated.
A work of art with three conditions can't be customized, because it originates from the artist's spiritual realm, is the highest expression of knowledge and reveals the mystery of life. Since this spiritual realm is the highest knowledge, it is impossible for other knowledge to guide artists to master this highest knowledge.
( 1889)
(translated by Chen Yan)
Precautions:
See chapter 22 of the Old Testament Numbers. Balak, king of Moab, sent Balaam, the envoy, to curse Israel. Balaam stayed with the messenger, and he waited for instructions from God. Because God forbade him, he didn't go to see Balak with the messenger. Balak sent messengers for the second time, promising him great honor and gifts. He was moved and followed the envoys. On the way, the angel of the Lord stopped him, and the donkey he rode saw it, but could not see it.
Make an appreciative comment
Lev tolstoy is not only a great artist and thinker, but also a realistic critic with original spirit. There are not many specialized literary criticism articles published by him, but his contemporary letters, diaries, notes, essays and memoirs contain his extremely rich aesthetic thoughts and literary opinions. These aesthetic ideas and literary ideas, especially literary criticism ideas, are mainly reflected in the following papers: 1889 On Art, 1894 Preface to Mo Bosang's Collected Works, 1894 Preface to Xie Jie Semenoff's Farmers' Stories, 65438. And on Shakespeare and Drama 1903. Tolstoy's great artistic talent made him the pinnacle of world literature, and his unique artistic concept and years of literary practice made lev tolstoy a giant in the world literary world. His creation and criticism formed his own ideological system of realistic criticism.
What exactly is art? There are always different opinions on such a fundamental issue. It is generally believed that art is the expression of beauty, but since Baumgarden founded aesthetics as an independent discipline, many scholars have been racking their brains to discuss the issue of beauty. Tolstoy believes that beauty is still a mystery. With the exploration of it by many people, there are many different answers, but in a word, all kinds of different answers often converge to one point, that is, to connect beauty with comfort and regard beauty as the satisfaction of this desire. Tolstoy believes that if art is regarded as a means to obtain pleasure, it is to demand art at the lowest stage of human moral development. Therefore, to give an accurate definition of art, first of all, art can no longer be regarded as a tool for enjoyment, but as an indispensable condition for human social life.
Tolstoy pointed out:
"In order to accurately define art, first of all, we should no longer regard art as a tool for enjoyment, but should regard it as one of the conditions of human life. After holding this view on art, we can't help but see that art is one of the means of communication between people.
"Any work of art can establish contact between the recipient and those who create or are creating art, and also with all those who have accepted, accepted before or will accept the same artistic impression in the future.
"Just as the language that expresses people's thoughts and experiences is a means of people's unity, so is the role of art ... However, art as a means of communication is different from language: one person uses language to convey his thoughts to another person, while others use art to convey his feelings to the other party."
Tolstoy also pointed out: "When a person reawakens the feelings he has experienced in his own heart in order to convey them to others, and expresses them with some external symbols, art begins." "All kinds of feelings, strong or weak, meaningful or insignificant, bad or good, are the objects of art as long as they infect readers, audiences and listeners."
According to his own point of view, lev tolstoy gave a new definition to art: "Arouse the feelings that you have experienced in your mind, and after arousing this feeling, convey this feeling with images expressed by actions, lines, colors, sounds and languages, so that others can experience the same feelings. This is an artistic activity. Art is a kind of human activity: a person consciously uses some external symbols to convey his feelings to others, and others are infected and experienced by these feelings. "
Lev tolstoy's standards are based on his own understanding of art and his own creative experience. Since the mission of art is to convey feelings, the appeal of art has become a standard to distinguish real art from fake art, and it is also a standard to measure the quality of artistic works. The characteristics of artistic appeal should be: the feelings between the receiver and the artist naturally ring, making him feel that the works of art are created by himself, and everything expressed in the works is something he misses so much. All people who appreciate the work can feel the same, so the boundaries between them and the artist are eliminated in the receiver's consciousness, and at the same time, the boundaries between the appreciators are eliminated, so the obstacles to mutual understanding are eliminated on the basis of an emotion, and unity and integration are achieved, so that the artist can complete his mission and realize his own value. For Tolstoy, the art that can reach this level is the real art, so he thinks that "appeal is the definite symbol of art", and the measure of whether art is excellent depends on whether it is profound.
The appeal of art depends on three conditions: 1. Unique feelings; 2。 Whether the emotional communication is clear; 3。 Whether the feelings conveyed by works of art are sincere. This is Tolstoy's "three conditions theory" or "three elements theory", which is also the most important and core thing in Tolstoy's literary criticism thought and a great contribution to literary criticism theory. Tolstoy has always regarded this as the criterion of criticism in his literary criticism activities.
This complete and rigorous criticism standard was first expressed in 1889' s On Art..
Tolstoy said: "The quality of a work of art depends on what the artist said, how he said it, and to what extent what he said came from the heart." He proposed: "Only works that are significant, novel and beautifully expressed, as well as the artist's sincere attitude towards their objects, are very real. Only such works are perfect works of art "is the most accurate criticism standard, which was later expressed in 1894" Preface to Mo Bosang's Collected Works ",and then repeatedly expressed in many papers.
(Du)