The Kingdom of God is Within You; What is Art?

Acts v. 29.

36

Matt. vi. 33.

37

Luke xvii. 20, 21.

38

Tolstoï's remarks on Church religion were re-worded so as to seem to relate only to the Western Church, and his disapproval of luxurious life was made to apply, not, say, to Queen Victoria or Nicholas II., but to the Cæsars or the Pharaohs. – Tr.

39

The Russian peasant is usually a member of a village commune, and has therefore a right to a share in the land belonging to the village. Tolstoï disapproves of the order of society which allows less land for the support of a village full of people than is sometimes owned by a single landed proprietor. The "Censor" will not allow disapproval of this state of things to be expressed, but is prepared to admit that the laws and customs, say, of England – where a yet more extreme form of landed property exists, and the men who actually labor on the land usually possess none of it – deserve criticism. – Tr.

40

Only two, or at most three, senses are generally held worthy to supply matter for artistic treatment, but I think this opinion is only conditionally correct. I will not lay too much stress on the fact that our common speech recognizes many other arts, as, for instance, the art of cookery.

41

And yet it is certainly an æsthetic achievement when the art of cooking succeeds in making of an animal's corpse an object in all respects tasteful. The principle of the Art of Taste (which goes beyond the so-called Art of Cookery) is therefore this: All that is eatable should be treated as the symbol of some Idea, and always in harmony with the Idea to be expressed.

42

If the sense of touch lacks color, it gives us, on the other hand, a notion which the eye alone cannot afford, and one of considerable æsthetic value, namely, that of softness, silkiness, polish. The beauty of velvet is characterized not less by its softness to the touch than by its luster. In the idea we form of a woman's beauty, the softness of her skin enters as an essential element.

Each of us, probably, with a little attention, can recall pleasures of taste which have been real æsthetic pleasures.

43

M. Schasler, "Kritische Geschichte der Æsthetik," 1872, vol. i., p. 13.

44

There is no science which, more than æsthetics, has been handed over to the reveries of the metaphysicians. From Plato down to the received doctrines of our day, people have made of art a strange amalgam of quintessential fancies and transcendental mysteries, which find their supreme expression in the conception of an absolute ideal Beauty, immutable and divine prototype of actual things.

45

See on this matter Benard's admirable book, "L'Esthétique d'Aristote," also Walter's "Geschichte der Æsthetik in Altertum."

46

Schasler, p. 361.

47

Schasler, p. 369.

48

Schasler, pp. 388-390.

49

Knight, "Philosophy of the Beautiful," i., pp. 165, 166.

50

Schasler, p. 289. Knight, pp. 168, 169.

51

R. Kralik, "Weltschönheit, Versuch einer allgemeinen Æsthetik," pp. 304-306.

52

Knight, p. 101.

53

Schasler, p. 316.

54

Knight, pp. 102-104.

55

R. Kralik, p. 124.

56

Spaletti, Schasler, p. 328.

57

Schasler, pp. 331-333.

58

Schasler, pp. 525-528.

59

Knight, pp. 61-63.

60

Schasler, pp. 740-743.

61

Schasler, pp, 769-771.

62

Schasler, pp. 786, 787.

63

Kralik, p. 148.

64

Kralik, p. 820.

65

Schasler, pp. 828, 829, 834-841.

66

Schasler, p. 891.

67

Schasler, p. 917.

68

Schasler, pp. 946, 1085, 984, 985, 990.

69

Schasler, pp. 966, 655, 956.

70

Schasler, p. 1017.

71

Schasler, pp. 1065, 1066.

72

Schasler, pp. 1097-1100.

73

Schasler, pp. 1124, 1107.

74

Knight, pp. 81, 82.

75

Knight, p. 83.

76

Schasler, p. 1121.

77

Knight, pp. 85, 86.

78

Knight, p. 88.

79

Knight, p. 88.

80

Knight, p. 112.

81

Knight, p. 116.

82

Knight, pp. 118, 119.

83

Knight, pp. 123, 124.

84

"La Philosophie en France," p. 232.

85

"Du Fondement de l'Induction."

86

"Philosophie de l'Art," vol. i., 1893, p. 47.

87

Knight, pp. 139-141.

88

Knight, p. 134.

89

"L'Esthétique," p. 106.

90

Knight, p. 238.

91

Knight, pp. 239, 240.

92

Knight, pp. 240-243.

93

Knight, pp. 250-252.

94

Knight, pp. 258, 259.

95

Knight, p. 243.

96

"The foundling of Nuremberg," found in the market-place of that town on 26th May, 1828, apparently some sixteen years old. He spoke little, and was almost totally ignorant even of common objects. He subsequently explained that he had been brought up in confinement underground, and visited by only one man, whom he saw but seldom. – Tr.

97

Eastern sects well known in early Church history, who rejected the Church's rendering of Christ's teaching, and were cruelly persecuted. – Tr.

98

Keltchitsky, a Bohemian of the fifteenth century, was the author of a remarkable book, "The Net of Faith," directed against Church and State. It is mentioned in Tolstoï's "The Kingdom of God is Within You." – Tr.

99

Any one examining closely may see that the theory of beauty and that of art are quite separated in Aristotle as they are in Plato and in all their successors.

100

Die Lücke von fünf Jahrhunderten, welche zwischen den Kunst-philosophischen Betrachtungen des Plato und Aristoteles und die des Plotins fällt, kann zwar auffällig erscheinen; dennoch kann man eigentlich nicht sagen, dass in dieser Zwischenzeit überhaupt von ästhetischen Dingen nicht die Rede gewesen; oder dass gar ein völliger Mangel an Zusammenhang zwischen den Kunst-anschauungen des letztgenannten Philosophen und denen der ersteren existire. Freilich wurde die von Aristoteles begründete Wissenschaft in Nichts dadurch gefördert; immerhin aber zeigt sich in jener Zwischenzeit noch ein gewisses Interesse für ästhetische Fragen. Nach Plotin aber, die wenigen, ihm in der Zeit nahestehenden Philosophen, wie Longin, Augustin, u. s. f. kommen, wie wir gesehen, kaum in Betracht und schliessen sich übrigens in ihrer Anschauungsweise an ihn an, – vergehen nicht fünf, sondern fünfzehn Jahrhunderte, in denen von irgend einer wissenschaftlichen Interesse für die Welt des Schönen und der Kunst nichts zu spüren ist.

Diese anderthalbtausend Jahre, innerhalb deren der Weltgeist durch die mannigfachsten Kämpfe hindurch zu einer völlig neuen Gestaltung des Lebens sich durcharbeitete, sind für die Aesthetik, hinsichtlich des weiteren Ausbaus dieser Wissenschaft verloren. – Max Schasler.

101

The contrast made is between the classes and the masses; between those who do not and those who do earn their bread by productive manual labor; the middle classes being taken as an offshoot of the upper classes. – Tr.

102

Dueling is still customary among the higher circles in Russia, as in other continental countries. – Tr.

103

It is the weariness of life, contempt for the present epoch, regret for another age seen through the illusion of art, a taste for paradox, a desire to be singular, a sentimental aspiration after simplicity, an infantine adoration of the marvelous, a sickly tendency toward reverie, a shattered condition of nerves, and, above all, the exasperated demand of sensuality.

104

Music, music before all thingsThe eccentric still prefer,Vague in air, and nothing weighty,Soluble. Yet do not err, Choosing words; still do it lightly,Do it too with some contempt;Dearest is the song that's tipsy,Clearness, dimness not exempt. * * * * Music always, now and everBe thy verse the thing that fliesFrom a soul that's gone, escaping,Gone to other loves and skies. Gone to other loves and regions,Following fortunes that allure,Mint and thyme and morning crispness…All the rest's mere literature.

105

I think there should be nothing but allusions. The contemplation of objects, the flying image of reveries evoked by them, are the song. The Parnassiens state the thing completely, and show it, and thereby lack mystery; they deprive the mind of that delicious joy of imagining that it creates. To name an object is to take three-quarters from the enjoyment of the poem, which consists in the happiness of guessing little by little: to suggest, that is the dream. It is the perfect use of this mystery that constitutes the symbol: little by little, to evoke an object in order to show a state of the soul; or, inversely, to choose an object, and from it to disengage a state of the soul by a series of decipherings.

… If a being of mediocre intelligence and insufficient literary preparation chance to open a book made in this way and pretends to enjoy it, there is a misunderstanding – things must be returned to their places. There should always be an enigma in poetry, and the aim of literature – it has no other – is to evoke objects.

106

It were time also to have done with this famous "theory of obscurity," which the new school have practically raised to the height of a dogma.

107

For translation, see Appendix IV.

108

For translation, see Appendix IV.

109

For translation, see Appendix IV.

110

For translation, see Appendix IV.

111

For translation, see Appendix IV.

112

For translation, see Appendix IV.

113

I do not wish to think any more, except about my mother Mary,Seat of wisdom and source of pardon,Also Mother of France, from whom weSteadfastly expect the honor of our country.

114

This sonnet seems too unintelligible for translation. – Tr.

115

For translation, see Appendix IV.

116

The quicker it goes the longer it lasts.

117

All styles are good except the wearisome style.

118

All styles are good except that which is not understood, or which fails to produce its effect.

119

An apparatus exists by means of which a very sensitive arrow, in dependence on the tension of a muscle of the arm, will indicate the physiological action of music on the nerves and muscles.

120

There is in Moscow a magnificent "Cathedral of our Saviour," erected to commemorate the defeat of the French in the war of 1812. – Tr.

121

"That they may be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us."

122

In this picture the spectators in the Roman Amphitheater are turning down their thumbs to show that they wish the vanquished gladiator to be killed. – Tr.

123

While offering as examples of art those that seem to me the best, I attach no special importance to my selection; for, besides being insufficiently informed in all branches of art, I belong to the class of people whose taste has, by false training, been perverted. And therefore my old, inured habits may cause me to err, and I may mistake for absolute merit the impression a work produced on me in my youth. My only purpose in mentioning examples of works of this or that class is to make my meaning clearer, and to show how, with my present views, I understand excellence in art in relation to its subject-matter. I must, moreover, mention that I consign my own artistic productions to the category of bad art, excepting the story "God sees the Truth," which seeks a place in the first class, and "The Prisoner of the Caucasus," which belongs to the second.

124

In Russian it is customary to make a distinction between literate and illiterate people, i. e. between those who can and those who cannot read. Literate in this sense does not imply that the man would speak or write correctly. – Tr.

125

The over-man (Uebermensch), in the Nietzschean philosophy, is that superior type of man whom the struggle for existence is to evolve, and who will seek only his own power and pleasure, will know nothing of pity, and will have the right, because he will possess the power, to make ordinary people serve him. – Tr.

126

Stenka Razin was by origin a common Cossack. His brother was hung for a breach of military discipline, and to this event Stenka Razin's hatred of the governing classes has been attributed. He formed a robber band, and subsequently headed a formidable rebellion, declaring himself in favor of freedom for the serfs, religious toleration, and the abolition of taxes. Like the government he opposed, he relied on force, and, though he used it largely in defense of the poor against the rich, he still held to

"The good old rule, the simple plan,That they should take who have the power,And they should keep who can."

Like Robin Hood, he is favorably treated in popular legends. – Tr.

127

Robert Macaire is a modern type of adroit and audacious rascality. He was the hero of a popular play produced in Paris in 1834. – Tr.

128

The translations in Appendices I., II., and IV., are by Louise Maude. The aim of these renderings has been to keep as close to the originals as the obscurity of meaning allowed. The sense (or absence of sense) has therefore been more considered than the form of the verses.