I like Tolstoy's conclusion in What is Art?, which I'm doing an injustice by summarizing as "universal emotional communication" which is contrasted with paid work, technical prowess, esoteric work, formulaic-derivative or pure aesthetics - anything that requires effort and "cultivation" to understand is not art.
> anything that requires effort and "cultivation" to understand is not art.
Tolstoy said that? Where? His work require a bit of effort and cultivation ... so does an incredible amount of art. Emotional communication does not at all exclude effort or cultivation; in fact, you can 'hear' a lot more if you sharpen your perception.
Cultivation seems hard to distinguish from any learning. Who is uncultivated, a four year old? Is art only what a four year old understands? That greatly limits what it can communicate to people who have become cultivated beyond that.
My interpretation of what he intended more closely aligns with the word "pretentious". Artistic contributions that are veiled behind complexity and technique, or require explanation and close examination, and exposure. I can't speak to the native Russian texts, but the English translations of his work, I would surmise, could be understood by anyone. In the preface to the copy of What is Art? that I read, it was reported that Tolstoy struggled with the topic for some time, and that he struggled to adhere to the principals he laid that define art. But again, I'm butchering it, and suggest you read it for yourself.
The peasant work song is art, Wagner's leitmotifs are pretentious.
I've never seen Tolstoy's attempt at a such definition before, but from what you describe, it reminds me of what Joyce had Stephen Daedalus think about art (I wonder if it was informed at all by Tolstoy).
As I recall it, the idea is that art starts with an unmitigated cry which is then made abstract, universal, in some way. I see no way for this to occur without some technical prowess, however.
One can surely be a noble and delight in the way in which the peasants and serfs conduct their culture. But to surmise that their art was artless (i.e. without τέχνη) seems foolish and makes me think there must be more to it than what you've suggested in your comment. Otherwise, were I to throw a fit in the street, that would qualify as art; but were I to do it in hexameter, that would not be art.
I think you are in essence right about what you're arguing, however. No cry comes from a machine, after all.
It's not so much that art had ought to be without prowess, but that the predominating reason for art to exist is as a medium of communication of a message, of emotion, to everyone. Art for art's sake, art designed only to convey the technical abilities of an artist isn't art because it isn't communicating the frame of reference of an artist, it's showing their ability to cleanly transition from dark to light values. It isn't intended to convey the mournful sadness and doesn't impute the viewer with the sense of voyeurism a la Repin's Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581 but as I qualified in the parent, I'm doing the text an injustice, it's a great work.
