Importance of arts Essay Summary Example For Students

Importance of arts Essay Summary The evaluation Of art depends directly on the psychological viewpoint from which we approach it. If we want to find out What the relationship between art and life is, if we want to solve the problem of art in terms of applied psychology, we must adopt a valid general theory for solving these problems. The first and most widespread view holds that art infects us with emotions and is therefore based upon contamination. Tolstoy says, The activity of art is based on the capacity of people to infect others with their own emotions and to be infected by the emotions of others. Strong emotions, weak emotions, important emotions, or irrelevant emotions, good emotions or bad emotions if they contaminate the reader, the peculator, or the listener become the subject of art. This statement means that since art is hut common emotion, there is no substantial difference between an ordinary feeling and a telling stirred by art. Consequently, art afflictions simply as a resonator, an amplifier, or a transmitter for the infection of feeling. Art has no specific distinction; hence the evaluation of art must proceed from the same criterion which we use to evaluate any feeling. Art may be good or bad if it infects us with good or bad feelings. Art in itself is neither good nor bad; it is a language of feeling which we must evaluate in accordance with what it expresses Thus, Tolstoy came to the natural conclusion that art must be evaluated from a moral viewpoint, he therefore approved of art that generated good feelings, and objected to art that, from his point of view, represented reprehensible events or actions. Many Other critics reached the same conclusions as did Tolstoy and evaluated a work of art on the basis of its obvious content, while praising or condemning the artist accordingly. Like ethics, like aesthetics this is the slogan of this theory. But Tolstoy soon discovered that his theory failed when he tried to be consistent with his own conclusions. He compared two artistic impressions: one produced by a large chorus of peasant women who were celebrating the marriage of his daughter: and the other, by an accomplished musician who played Beethovens Sonata. The singing of the peasant women expressed such a feeling of joy, cheerfulness, and liveliness that it infected Tolstoy and he went home in high spirits. According to him, such singing is true art, because it communicates a specific and powerful emotion. Since the second impression involved no such specific emotions, he concluded that Beethovens sonata is an unsuccessful artistic attempt which contains no definite emotions ND is therefore neither remarkable nor outstanding. This example shows us the absurd conclusions that can be reached if the critical understanding of art is based upon the criterion of its infectiousness Beethovens music incorporates no definite feeling, while the singing of the peasant women has an elementary and contagious gaiety. If this is true, then Hallelujah is right when he states that real, true art is military or dance music, since it is more catchy. Tolstoy is consistent in his ideas; beside folk songs, he recognizes only marches and dances written by various composers as works that approach the requirements Of universal art. A reviewer Of Tolstoy article, V. G. Falter, points out that if Tolstoy had said that the gaiety of the peasant women put him in a good mood, one could not Object to that. It would mean that the language Of emotions that expressed itself in their singing (it could well have expressed itself simply in yelling and most likely did) infected Tolstoy with their gaiety. But what has this to do with art? Tolstoy does not say whether the women sang well; had they not sung but simply yelled, beating their scythes, their fun and gaiety would have been no less catching, especially on his daughters wedding day. We feel hat if we compare an ordinary yell of fear to a powerful novel in terms of their respective infectiousness, the latter will fail the test. Obviously, to understand art we must add something else to simple infectiousness. Art also produces other impressions, and Longings statement, You must know that the orator pursues one purpose, and the poet another. The purpose of poetry is trepidation, that of prose is expressively, is correct. Tolstoy formula failed to account for the trepidation which is the purpose of poetry. But to prove that he is really wrong, we must look at the art of military and dance music and find out whether the rue purpose of that art is to infect. Patriarchates assumes that aesthetics are wrong when they claim that the purpose of art is to generate aesthetic emotions only. He feels that art produces general emotions, and that aesthetic emotions are merely decorative. Poor instance, the art of a warlike period in the life Off people has as its main purpose the excitation of heroic-bellicose emotions. Even now, military music is not intended to give the soldiers in the field aesthetic enjoyment, but to excite and enhance their belligerent feelings. The purpose of medieval art (including sculpture and architecture) was to produce lofty religious motions. Lyric appeals to one aspect of our emotional psyche, satire to another; the same applies to drama, tragedy, and so on Apart frown the fact that military music does not generate bellicose emotions on the battlefield, the question is not properly formulated here. Vision. Skivvies, for example, comes closer to the truth when he says that military lyrics and music lift the spirit of the army and inspire feats of valor and heroic deeds, but neither of them leads directly to bellicose emotions or belligerent affects. On the contrary, they seem to moderate bellicose ardor, calm an excited nervous system, and chase away ear, We can say that lifting morale, calming nerves, and chasing away fear are among the most important practical functions tot lyrics which result trot their psychological nature, It is therefore wrong to think that music can directly cause warlike emotions; more precisely, it gives bellicose emotions an opportunity for expression, but music as such neither causes nor generates them. Something similar happens with erotic poetry, the sole purpose of which, according to Tolstoy, is to excite lust Anyone who understands the true nature of lyrical emotions knows that Tolstoy is wrong. There is no doubt that lyrical emotion has a soothing effect on all other emotions (and affects) to the point that at times it paralyzes them. This is also the effect it has on sexuality with its emotions and affects. Erotic poetry, if it is truly lyrical, is far less suggestive than works of the visual arts in which the problems of love and the notorious sex problem are treated With the purpose Of producing a moral reaction. Soaking-Skivvies is only partly correct in his assumption that sexual feeling, which is easily excited, is most strongly stirred by images and thoughts, that these images and thoughts re rendered harmless by lyrical emotion, and that mankind is indebted to lyrics, even more than to ethics, for the taming and restraining Of sexual instincts. He underestimates the importance of the other art forms. Which he calls figurative, and does not remark that in their case also emotions provoked by images are counteracted by the analytical emotion of art. Thus we see that Tolstoy theory does not hold in the domain of the applied arts, where he thought its validity to be absolute. As concerns great art (the art of Beethoven and Shakespeare), Tolstoy himself pointed out that his theory is inapplicable. Art would have a lull and ungrateful task if its only purpose were to infect one or many persons with telling. It this were so, its significance would be very small, because there would be only a quantitative expansion and no qualitative expansion beyond an individuals feeling. The miracle of art would then be like the bleak miracle of the Gospel, when five barley loaves and two small fishes fed thousands of people, all of whom ate and were satisfied, and a dozen baskets were filled with the remaining food. This miracle is only quantitative: thousands were fed and were satisfied, but each of them ate only fish and bread. But avgas this not their lily diet at home, without any miracles? If the only purpose off tragic poem were to infect us with the authors sorrow, this would be a very sad situation indeed for art. The miracle of art reminds us much more of another miracle in the Gospel, the transformation of water into wine. Indeed, arts true nature is that of transubstantiation, something that transcends ordinary feelings; for the fear, pain, or excitement caused by art includes something above and beyond its normal, conventional content. This something overcomes feelings Of fear and pain, changes water into wine, and thus fulfills the most important purpose of art. One of the great thinkers said once that art relates to life as wine relates to the grape. With this he meant to say that art takes its material from life, but gives in return something which its material did not contain. Initially, an emotion is individual, and only by means of a work of art does it become social or generalized. But it appears that art by itself contributes nothing to this emotion, It is not clear, then, why art should be viewed as a creative act nor how it differs from an ordinary yell or an orators speech. Where is the trepidation of which Longings spoke, if art is viewed only as an exercise in infectiousness? We legalize that science does not simply infect one person or a whole society with thoughts and ideas, any more than technology helps man to he handy. We can also recognize that art is an expanded social feeling or technique of feelings, as we shall show later. Pleasant states that the relationship between art and life is extremely complex, and he is right. He quotes Attire who investigated the interesting question of buy landscape painting evolved only in the city. If art were intended merely to infect us with the feelings that life communicates to us, then landscape painting could not survive in the city. History, however, proves exactly the opposite. Taint writes, We have the right to admire landscapes, just as they had the right to be bored by it. Gore seventeenth-century man there was nothing uglier than a mountain. It aroused in him many unpleasant ideas, because he was as weary Of barbarianism as we are weary Of civilization. Mountains give us a chance to rest, away from our sidewalks, offices, and shops; we like landscape only for this reason. 6 Pleasant points out that art is sometimes not a direct expression of life, but an expression of its antithesis. The idea, Of course, is not in the leisure Of Which Taint speaks, but in a certain antithesis: art releases an aspect of our psyche which finds no expression in our everyday life. We cannot speak of an infection with emotions. The effect of art is obviously much more varied and complex; no matter how we approach art, we always discover that it involves something different from a simple transmission of feelings. Whether or not we agree with Lancashire that art is a concentration of elite, we must realize that it proceeds from certain live feelings and works upon those feelings, a fact not considered by Tolstoy theory. We have seen that this process is a catharsis the transformation of these feelings into opposite nest and their subsequent resolution. This view of course agrees perfectly with Pleonasms principle of antithesis in art. To understand this we must look at the problem of the biological significance of art, and realize that art is not merely a means for infection but something immeasurably more important in itself, In his Three Chapters of Historic Poetics, Viselike says that ancient singing and playing were born from a complex need for catharsis; a chorus sung during hard and exhausting work regulates muscular effort by its rhythm, and apparently aimless play responds to the subconscious requirement of training ND regulation of physical or intellectual effort. Radical Reconstruction EssayIn this respect art is not subordinated to the principle of the economy tot strength: on the contrary, art is an explosive and sudden expenditure of strength, of forces (psychic and otherwise), a discharge tot energy. A work tot art perceived coldly and prosaically, or processed and treated to be perceived in this way, saves much more energy and force than if it were perceived with the full effect of its artistic form in mind. Although it is an explosive discharge, art does introduce order and harmony into the psychic household, of our feelings. And of course the waste of energy performed by Anna Karen when she experienced the feelings and emotions of the heroes of the novel she was reading is a saving of psychic forces if compared to the actual emotion. A more complex and deeper meaning of the principle of economizing emotions will become clearer it we try to understand the social significance of art. Art is the social within us , and even if its action is performed by a single individual, it does not mean that its essence is individual. It is quite naive and inappropriate to take the social to be collective, as with a large crowd of persons. The social also exists verse there is only one person with his individual experiences and tribulations. This is Why the action Of art, when it performs catharsis and pushes into this purifying flame the most intimate and important experiences, emotions, and feelings Of the soul, is a social action. But this experience does not happen as described in the theory of contamination (where a feeling born in one person infects and contaminates everybody and becomes social), but exactly the other way around. The melting of feelings outside us is performed by the strength of social feeling, which is objective, trivialize, and projected outside of us, then fixed in external objects of art which have become the tools of society. A fundamental characteristic of man, one that distinguishes him from animals, is that he endures and separates from his body both the apparatus tot technology and that tot scientific knowledge, which then become the tools of society. Art is the social technique of emotion, a tool of society which brings the most intimate and personal aspects of our being into the circle of social life, It would be more correct to say that emotion becomes personal when every one of us experiences a work of art; it becomes personal thou ceasing to be social. Art, says Guy, is a condensation of reality; it shows us the human machine under high pressure. It tries to show us more life phenomena than we actually experience. Of course this life, concentrated in art, exerts an effect not only on our emotions but also on our will because emotion contains the seed of Will. Guy correctly attributes a tremendous importance to the role played by art in society. It introduces the effects of passion, violates inner equilibrium, changes Will in a new sense, and stirs feelings, emotions, passions, and vices without which society would remain in an inert and snootiness State. It pronounces the word we were seeking and vibrates the string which wa s strained but soundless. A work of art is the center of attraction, as is the active will of a genius: if Napoleon attracts will, Chronicle and Victor Hugo do so too, but in a different way. Who knows the number of crimes instigated by novels describing murders? Who knows the number of divorces resulting from representations of debauchery? Guy formulates the question in much too primitive a way, because he imagines that art directly causes this or the other emotion. Yet, this never happens. A representation of murder does not cause murder. A scene of debauchery does not inspire divorce: the relationship between art and life is very complex, and in a very approximate way it can be described as will be shown. Henequen sees the difference between aesthetic and real emotion in the fact that aesthetic emotion does not immediately express itself in action. He says, however, that if repeated over and over again, these emotions can become the basis for an individuals behavior; thus, an individual can be affected by the kind of literature he reads. An emotion imparted by a work of art is not capable of expressing itself in immediate actions. In this respect aesthetic feelings differ sharply from actual feelings. But, since they serve an end in themselves, they justify themselves and need not be immediately expressed in any practical activity; aesthetic emotions can, by accumulation and repetition, lead to substantial practical results. These results depend upon the general properties of aesthetic emotion and the particular properties of each of these emotions. Repeated exercises Of a specific group Of feelings under the effect Of invention, imagination, or unreal rondos or causes that generally cannot result in action do not require active manifestations, and doubtless weaken the property common to all real emotions, that of expression in action. l Henequen introduces two very important corrections, but his solution Of the problem remains quite primitive. He is correct in saying that aesthetic emotion does not immediately generate action, that it manifests itself in the change of purpose. He is also correct when he states that aesthetic emotion not only does not generate the actions of which it speaks, but is completely alien to them. On the basis of Guys example, we could say that the reading of novels about murder not only does not incite us to murder, but actually teaches us not to kill; but this point of view of Wineskins, although it is more applicable than the former, is quite simple compared with the subtle function assigned to art. As a matter of fact, art performs an extremely complex action with our passions and goes tar beyond the limits of these two simplistic alternatives. Andrei Belly says that when we listen to music we feel what giants must have felt. Toasty masterfully describes this high tension of art in his Krueger Sonata: Do you know the first place? Do you really know it? he explains. Oh! A sonata is a frightening thing. Yes, this part, precisely. Music, generally, is a frightening thing. What is it? I dont understand. What is music? What does it do? And why does it do whatever it does? They say that music elevates our soul. Rubbish, nonsense! It does work, it has a terrible effect (I am talking for myself, but it certainly does not lift the soul. It does not lift the soul, nor does debase it, but it irritates it. How can I put it? Music makes me Oblivious Of myself; it makes me forget my true position; it transfers me into another position, not mine, not my own: it seems to me, ender the effect Of music, that I feel What dont feel, that I understand What I actually dont understand, cant understand. Music immediately, suddenly, transports me into the mood which must have been that of the man who wrote it. I become one with him, and together with him swing from one mood into another, from one state into another, but why am doing it, I dont know. That fellow, for instance, who wrote the Krueger Sonata, Beethoven, he knew why he was in that state. That state led him to certain actions, and therefore, for him, that state was sensible . For me, it means nothing, it is completely senseless, And this is why music only irritates and achieves nothing. Well, it I play a military march, the soldiers will march in step, and the music has achieved its purpose; if dance music is played, I dance, and the music achieves its purpose. Or, it Mass is sung and I take communion, well, here too the music has achieved its purpose; otherwise, it is only irritation, and no one knows what to do with this irritation. This is why music occasionally has such a horrible,terrifying effect. In China music is an affair of state, and this is how outshoot be Otherwise it could be a terrifying tool in the hands of Take for instance the Krueger Sonata. How can one play its presto in a drawing room, amidst ladies in dà ©colletà ©? Play it, and then busy oneself, then eat some ice cream and listen to the latest gossip? No, these things can be played only in the face of significant, important circumstances, and then it will be necessary to perform certain appropriate acts that fit the music. If it must be played, we must act according to its setting of our mood. Otherwise the incongruity between the place, the time, the waste Of energy, and the feelings which do not manifest themselves will have a disastrous effect. This excerpt from The Krueger Sonata tells us quite convincingly Of the incomprehensibly frightening effect of music for the average listener. It reveals a new aspect Of the aesthetic response and shows that it is not a blank shot, but a response to a work of art, and a new and powerful stimulus for further action. Art requires a reply, it incites certain actions, and Tolstoy quite correctly compares the effect of Beethovens music with that of a dance tune or a march. In the latter case, the excitement created by the music resolves itself in a response, and a feeling of satisfied repose sets in, In the case of Beethovens music we are thrown into a state of confusion and anxiety, because the music reveals those urges and desires that can find a resolution only in exceptionally important and heroic actions. When this music is followed by ice cream and gossip amidst ladies in dà ©colletà ©, we are left in a state of exceptional anxiety, tension, and disarray. But Tolstoy character makes a mistake when he compares the irritating and stimulating effect of this music to the effect produced by a military march, He does not realize that the effect of music reveals itself much more subtly, by means of hidden shocks, stresses, and deformations of our constitution. It may reveal itself unexpectedly, and in an extraordinary way. But in this description, tuft points are made faith exceptional clarity: First, music incites, excites, and irritates in an indeterminate fashion not connected with any concrete reaction, motion, or action. This is proof that its effect is cathartic, that is, it clears our psyche, reveals and calls to life tremendous energies which were previously inhibited and restrained. This, however is a consequence Of art, not its action. Secondly, music has coercive power. Tolstoy suggests that music should be an affair Of State. He believes that music is a public affair. One critic pointed out hat when we perceive a work a work of art we think that our reaction is strictly personal and associated only with ourselves. We believe that it has nothing to do social psychology. But this is as wrong as the opinion off person pays taxes and considers this action only from his own viewpoint own, personal budget, without bearing in mind that he participate the huge and complex economy of the state. He does not reflect that by paying taxes he takes part in involved state operations behooves existence he does not even suspect, This is why Freud is wrong when he says that man stands face to face with the reality of nature, and hat art be derived from the purely biological difference between the principle of enjoyment toward which all our inclinations gravitate, and that tot reality which forces us to renounce satisfaction and pleasure.