vince_smith2

<p>I don't want to hijack this thread, but I'll add one more thing about the Tolstoy art essay involving an interesting personal reaction. <br /> To illustrate how the artist communicates, Tolstoy included a sentence about a boy who experienced fear upon seeing a wolf in the forest. He described the feelings transmitted by the boy when the boy recounted the experience to other people from his village. Tolstoy used it as a very basic example of how artists communicate. Here's the part I found interesting. As I was reading the sentence Tolstoy wrote about the boy's encounter with the wolf and the fear the boy felt upon seeing the wolf move near him, my heartbeat quickened slightly and my breathing changed. I'm not an author. If I wrote a full story about a boy encountering a wolf in the forest, I doubt that anyone reading it would feel anything. Tolstoy wrote a single sentence that was meant to communicate an intellectual point and I needed to increase my blood pressure meds. <br /> The wolf story leaves very little for the audience to interpret, so it's easy to understand the shared experience of that story (as told by an accomplished author like Tolstoy) and how the experience "destroys the separation" between artist and audience. We all feel anxious at times. How do I know that I'm not alone in my response to a dangerous situation? Other people are able to share their experiences, whether they are actual experiences or imagined experiences, in a way that causes me to re-live the feelings I've felt before. I have no doubt that what I'm feeling is not identical to what they're feeling, but I understand them and they understand me. When art is open to wide interpretation and there is little or nothing of a shared experience, my reaction is different as is my connection to the artist. I don't mean to imply that it's an empty experience, just different.</p> <p> </p>

<p>I read a great quote by Leo Tolstoy on this topic:<br> "The receiver of a true artistic impression is so united to the artist that he feels as if the work were his own and not someone else's - as if what it expresses were just what he had long been wishing to express. A real work of art destroys, in the consciousness of the receiver, the separation between himself and the artist - not that alone, but also between himself and all whose minds receive this work of art. In this freeing of our personality from its separation and isolation, in this uniting of it with others, lies the chief characteristic and the great attractive force of art."<br> I really like the idea Tolstoy puts forth that there is a connection not just between the artist and an individual viewer, but between everyone who experiences the work. Also, there's an important distinction between what you learn about the artist through knowledge of facts about their life and what you learn by experiencing their art.</p>