WHAT IS ART? WHAT IS ART? BY LEO TOLSTOY TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL MS., WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY AYLMER MAUDE NEW YORK FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 1904 Introduction What thoughtful man has not been perplexed by problems relating to art? An estimable and charming Russian lady I knew, felt the charm of the music and ritual of the services of the Russo-Greek Church so strongly that she wished the peasants, in whom she was interested, to retain their blind faith, though she herself disbelieved the church doctrines. “Their lives are so poor and bare—they have so little art, so little poetry and colour in their lives—let them at least enjoy what they have; it would be cruel to undeceive them,” said she. A false and antiquated view of life is supported by means of art, and is inseparably linked to some manifestations of art which we enjoy and prize. If the false view of life be destroyed this art will cease to appear valuable. Is it best to screen the error for the sake of preserving the art? Or should the art be sacrificed for the sake of truthfulness? Again and again in history a dominant church has utilised art to maintain its sway over men. Reformers (early Christians, Mohammedans, Puritans, and others) have perceived that art bound people to the old faith, and they were angry with art. They diligently chipped the noses from statues and images, and were wroth with ceremonies, decorations, stained-glass windows, and processions. They were even ready to banish art altogether, for, besides the superstitions it upheld, they saw that it depraved and perverted men by dramas, drinking-songs, novels, pictures, and dances, of a kind that awakened man’s lower nature. Yet art always reasserted her sway, and to-day we are told by many that art has nothing to do with morality—that “art should be followed for art’s sake.”