Christian art[edit]

Tolstoy's analysis is influenced by his radical Christian views (see The Kingdom of God is Within
You), views which led him to be excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901. [17] He
states that Christian art, rooted in "the consciousness of sonship to God and the brotherhood of
men":[18]
can evoke reverence for each man's dignity, for every animals life, it can evoke the shame of luxury,
of violence, of revenge, of using for ones pleasure objects that are a necessity for other people, it
can make people sacrifice themselves to serve others freely and joyfully, without noticing it. [19]
Ultimately, "by calling up the feelings of brotherhood and love in people under imaginary conditions,
religious art will accustom people to experiencing the same feelings in reality under the same
conditions".[19]
Tolstoy's examples: Schiller's The Robbers, Victor Hugo's Les Misrables, Charles Dickens's A Tale
of Two Cities and The Chimes, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin,Dostoevsky's The
House of the Dead, George Eliot's Adam Bede,[20] Ge's Judgement, Liezen-Mayer's Signing the
Death Sentence, and paintings "portraying the labouring man with respect and love" such as those
by Millet, Breton, Lhermitte, and Defregger.[21]

Universal art[edit]
"Universal" art[20] illustrates that people are "already united in the oneness of life's joys and
sorrows"[22] by communicating "feelings of the simplest, most everyday sort, accessible to all people
without exception, such as the feelings of merriment, tenderness, cheerfulness, peacefulness, and
so on".[18] Tolstoy contrasts this ideal with art that is partisan in nature, whether it be by class, religion,
nation, or style.[23]
Tolstoy's examples: he mentions, with many qualifiers, the works of Cervantes,
Dickens, Moliere, Gogol, and Pushkin, comparing all of these unfavourably to the story ofJoseph.
[21]

In music he commends a violin aria of Bach, the E-flat major nocturne of Chopin, and "selected

passages" from Schubert, Haydn, Chopin, and Mozart. He also speaks briefly of genre
paintings and landscapes.[24]

Evaluating style[edit]
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Obscurity versus accessibility[edit]

Tolstoy notes the susceptibility of his contemporaries to the "charm of obscurity". [25] Works have
become laden with "euphemisms, mythological and historical allusions", and general "vagueness,
mysteriousness, obscurity and inaccessibility to the masses". [25] Tolstoy lambastes such works,
insisting that art can and should be comprehensible to everyone. Having emphasised that art has a
function in the improvement of humanity - capable of expressing mans best sentiment - he finds it
offensive that artists should be so wilfully and arrogantly abstruse.[26]

Artificiality[edit]
One criticism Tolstoy levels against art is that at some point it "ceased to be sincere and became
artificial and cerebral",[27] leading to the creation of millions of works of technical brilliance but few of
honourable sentiment.[28] Tolstoy outlines four common markers of bad art: these are not however
considered the canon or ultimate indicators
1. Borrowing
2. Imitation
3. Effectfulness
4. Diversion[29]

Borrowing[edit]
Involves recycling and concentrating elements from other works,[29] typical examples of which are:
"maidens, warriors, shepherds, hermits, angels, devils in all forms, moonlight, thunderstorms,
mountains, the sea, precipices, flowers, long hair, lions, the lamb, the dove, the nightingale". [30]

Imitation[edit]
Imitation is highly descriptive realism, where painting becomes photography, or a scene in a book
becomes a listing of facial expressions, tone of voice, the setting, and so on. [31]Any potential
communication of feeling is "disrupted by the superfluity of details". [32]

Effectfulness[edit]
Reliance on "strikingness", often involving contrasts of "horrible and tender, beautiful and ugly, loud
and soft, dark and light", descriptions of lust,[31] "crescendo and complication", unexpected changes
in rhythm, tempo, etc.[33] Tolstoy contends that works marked by such techniques "do not convey any
feeling, but only affect the nerves".[34]

Diversion[edit]
Diversion is "an intellectual interest added to the work of art", such as the melding of documentary
and fiction, as well as the writing of novels, poetry, and music "in such a way that they must be

puzzled out".[33] All such works do not correspond with Tolstoy's view of art as the infection of others
with feelings previously experienced,[35] and his exhortation that art be "universal" in appeal.[24]