‘Not fearing offence, not demanding a crown’.

Pushkin

This question has been answered many times, and still it has not lost its meaning, because it belongs to those questions to which not only every generation, but every person should seek its own answer. Of course, the question ‘what is art?’ (or ‘what is poetry?’ because poetry is a generic concept for all art) does not stand next to such questions as ‘what is life? what is death?’; not everyone has to answer it, but only those who are sufficiently affected by culture as an area of producing values.

So, for people of culture this question has always been important, even if it was not posed by them explicitly; an artist most often answers the question ‘what is my work?’ with his work (a poet — with poems; a painter — with paintings); in a word, he lives by his work, not by philosophising around it. It also happens that an artist gives a completely different answer to this fundamental question by his work than by philosophising around his work (this was the case with Leo Tolstoi).

At a time when art, if not dying (as I think it is), is at least in great danger, the question of its meaning becomes a question of its future. Does society need it in the form it had before; or will a victorious democracy replace art with something else (as it replaced ‘independence’ with ‘freedom’)?

Let us take a quick look at art (keeping in mind, first of all, the idea of poetry as the mother and prototype of all arts). What can be said about it at a glance?

Not so long ago, it was thought that art was primarily concerned with the beautiful, and that an appeal to beauty was its indispensable, even distinctive feature. Art as the matter of beauty was opposed to science as the matter of utility. Today this opposition has been erased; mass production, scientifically organised, supplies the nations with a multitude of fine, if not beautiful, things. Beauty has become industrialised and put ‘on the production line’. Art is no longer the only refuge of the beautiful.

What else does our eye see in art? Firstly, it is part of a more general whole: culture. Culture nowadays is understood mainly as the accumulation of knowledge and customs, but in the primary sense (and in the epochs of rise, not decline) culture is, as said above, the field of production of values. If these values are not produced, there is nothing to keep in the treasuries of culture; in this field, as in all others, ‘he that gathereth not scattereth abroad’.

So, art is the field of value production, in other words: creativity. But in this respect it is not exclusive. Science, too, in its brightest times, brings new things into the world. It, too, enters the realm of culture, but its creativity is completely rational; it is devoid of both passion and conscience; and in the worst times, the creative power almost completely leaves it… However, we are not talking about science now.

Where there is doing, there is competition. No one does anything difficult and demanding (i. e. skilful) for himself. Art implies a public: an observer, a reader, a spectator, a critic; in general, a force that stands aside but is at the same time interested in the fruits of creation. Art, at the same time, implies the artist’s non-solitude; he needs not only a spectator but also a rival. Art without a spectator and a rival is possible, but rare.

This is where art and science diverge: what is a necessity for the artist is a luxury for the scientist. He does not need an audience at all; rivalry is useful, but not necessary.

So we have found in art creativity, the need for sympathy, competition. But is it all? Has anything escaped us?

Of course, it has. Art (and again its comparison with science is fruitful) has a qualitative side. Like science (let me say: real science, which is becoming more and more rare as time goes by), it is based on personal giftedness, and — again, like science — it is ‘known by its fruits’, i. e. by its ‘results’. The presence of both in art is undoubtedly quite ‘objective’ and easily ascertainable.

‘Oh, please!’ — I may be objected to. — ‘What kind of ‘objectivity’ can we talk about in relation to art, to the childish games of self-absorbed “creators” who set their own rules!’

Yes, Pushkin once said that ‘the poet must be judged by the laws he himself has recognised’. This is aptly put, but incomplete. The laws of style and theme are different for each poet; they are, if you will, ‘relative’. The brilliance of personal talent or its absence is no longer relative; talent is either there or it is not. In order not to be accused of using the vague word ‘talent’, I will give it a simple definition: talent (when we speak of an artist) is the originality of thinking, feeling and expression, combined with a high development of personality. (In this last point, art diverges from science: a scientist does not need to be a fully developed personality…). Of course, there are no simple quantitative ways to measure personal development; it is enough just to have ears and hear… If you have ears. [1]

With regard to the fruits of art, many people think that the acceptance of some and rejection of others is solely a ‘matter of taste’ (i. e. not the taste that consists in the educated and clarified ability of judgement, but the ‘taste’ that unaccountably prefers, say, sweet to sour). The defenders of this view do not believe in any objective (i. e. universally binding) value of works of art and reject all attempts to justify the contrary as unscrupulous. But the case is not so simple…

Let us examine it. What is required to compose art? A gift, an audience, rivals… The need for an audience, if we look at it from the other side, speaks to the creator’s ability to create something that this audience (even a small part of it) is able to understand. If the novelty of the work completely, staggeringly outstripped the ability of the public (even a few of its members) to understand, the work might as well have been composed in the Martian language. What I have said should not be turned against any creator superior to his era. Yes, the rejection of contemporaries is the almost indispensable fate of all truly new work; but at the same time the poet never creates in a perfect void; if he is both strong and new, there are bound to be at least a few people, in the extreme case at least one, for whom his words are not empty. This is the way God has arranged to protect the light on earth. Newness is resisted; it tires the eyes; the light of the lamp is so disturbing after the peaceful darkness… But there is always at least one pair of eyes, and behold, ‘the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not’.

But I’m getting away from the point. Reducing the matter to the simplest case, let us say: a work must be such that at least one living soul can grasp it. This, so to speak, is the lowest limit of meaningfulness, beyond which there is the beastly roar and howl of the wind. But this least meaningfulness is still not enough for a work of art (although the peoples of modern times have learnt to find pleasure in shouts and rhythms, the only justification for which is their accessibility to the majority). There is another limit — the upper limit.  If we agree with Leo Tolstoi that a work should be understandable (not to ‘all’, but at least to some part of observers), it should in no way be simple.

‘Clarity and simplicity’ is a common myth when it comes to art. This myth is particularly successful in Russia; I can see two reasons for this, and they are quite dissimilar. Firstly, we are spoilt by Pushkin’s ‘transparent’ muse, behind which the daily work on oneself and the word is incomprehensible to schoolchildren, and even to many superficially judging adults. Secondly, after Pushkin, Russian culture has gone through a long period of simplification, when every artist was recommended themes ‘generally understood by the common people’, like ‘black bread is grandfather to round bread roll’. The preaching of simplification in a country that had not yet reached sufficient maturity, i. e. general complexity (worse still, in which the highest forms of mental complexity were juxtaposed with unimaginable simplicity), was both unwise and dangerous, and led in a short time to the inevitable consequences, i. e. the catastrophe of the 1917th.

What is required of a work of art, with a certain amount of ‘comprehensibility’, is not simplicity at all. On the contrary, the meaning of art is that it processes the simplest into the most complex, i. e. it acts in the opposite way to digestion. In order not to repeat myself, I will cite a passage from my essay The Poet and His Values:

‘What does he who judges creativity by observing it “from within” see?

He sees that creativity is a strong anchor, a firm foundation, the centre of balance of mental life. It does not simply ‘release experiences’, its action is not simply the magic of a word, the right name for an object, the knowledge of which gives power over that object (although it does have that in it). Creativity is a necessary part of inner life, the absence of which is a sign of lack of development or illness. The materialistic understanding of inner life as a flow of scraps and fragments carried by the wind of impressions does not give an explanation of creativity. The materialist sees it as a whim, not a necessity. In fact, it is necessary for the soul to create, just as it is necessary for the body to digest food, with the difference that the soul life produces more complex things out of simpler things, unlike the bodily life. The soul needs, urgently needs, having taken the simple, to convert it into the more complex; otherwise it shrivels up and becomes sick. The soul which, having taken the simple, produces the more simple, is a sick soul.

Artistic whistling is a whim, creativity is a necessity, not only for the creative soul, but also for the society in which it is placed. The artist (in the broadest sense of the word, encompassing both the poet and the prophet) supplies his society with values — this is how we can express the meaning of his labours. He transforms mere impressions into meanings or values — a work without which the stream of life events, sweet or terrible, will remain a stream, but will never become Life. Our days — I will digress here — worship facts, the flow of events, without realising that the flow of events without the evaluating and judging personality is the same as objects without light falling on them’.

In other words, the laws of creation are against the laws of nature. Unlike a mirror, it does not simply transmit, weakening the light it receives, but adds its own light to the light it receives. And it is here, in this ‘violation of laws’, that true art differs from any imitation of it. Perfect creativity differs from imperfect creativity, and imperfect creativity from non-creativity, from what is called ‘a mania for writing’, precisely by its ability to convey something more than what has been received. As the reader may know, I believe that light accretes throughout human history; and only light — darkness always remains the same, has no development or complication. This is the effect of the same law: in receiving, pass on more than you have received.

This is the law of true art. Everything else is the circumstances of time and place, the circumstances of the artist’s life; in a word, that which will not be transmitted to posterity.

So: talent, audience, literary milieu (the very ‘rivals’ mentioned above), understanding at least by a single reader — and at the same time complexity. These are the traits of true art. Is it all of them? Surely not all of them. There is another worthy of mention. The poet is concerned with putting his soul into words and rhythms. Rhyme is a secondary feature of poetry; it cannot be considered a condition of poetic creativity. The condition of poetry is different: the density of creation; the saturation of the work with the air and sound of this particular soul — of all souls. Poetry is either personally inimitable or it does not exist. The personal with which the poet saturates his work is necessarily universal — or there is no poet before us. The ‘universal’ here is not what each of us experiences or is capable of experiencing everyday, but what everyone (given sufficient development) is capable of feeling or even understanding.

Here, at last, we have reached the last (as far as the eye can see) condition of true art: the ability of the observer (reader, viewer, listener) to feel or understand this art. The artist both may and cannot be alone. His loneliness, if he is alone, is always temporary, like the loneliness of a king without a kingdom. The kingdom is detached from him, but it is there, must be there.  It is not up to him to regain that kingdom for himself; but he knows that he needs the kingdom as it needs him.

Do these needs meet? Do the conditions of art that we have found meet? It does not depend on us. In favourable times it happens more often; in unfavourable times — less often.

‘Neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all’.

The wisdom of Ecclesiastes does not, however, abolish the power and dignity of our reason; it does not remove from us the duty to seek, and if we cannot find, to learn; the duty to judge without relying on the judgement of the crowd; the duty to create the real, even in times when only counterfeits are in demand.

In a word, to make art as it ought to be.

[1] There is a common misconception linking the gift with insanity. For someone who is really familiar with creativity, this statement makes no sense. But for those who look at creativity from the ‘outside’, I would say that between mental illness and creativity is a deep, vast and impassable swamp. The masses are strangely flattered by thoughts of the abnormality of creators; perhaps because these thoughts absolve them of the sin of creative sterility; creativity is relegated from the norm to the category of a disease, even if it is a beautiful one, and you and I do not wish ourselves any diseases… To destroy this strange dream, it is enough to say that the disease of the soul — twilight and obscurity — is completely opposite to creativity: light and the highest degree of order. It is enough to ask oneself: in what did Dostoevsky’s genius effectively manifest itself? In voluptuousness (let us repeat this stupid word after Strakhov; stupid because voluptuousness, which is unknown to Strakhov, requires both imagination and intelligence. Senseless fools are not voluptuous) and fits of epilepsy? Or in the moments of lucidity in which he sketched, for example, the remarkable clear thoughts of the Fantastic Pages of The Devils? Was not the illness only a forest in which his soul wandered and found its way? I will say it bluntly: the disease can sharpen sensitivity, but is not able to give creativity neither content nor form. Contents and forms are all from the gift and its collision with reality. After all, what is ‘content’ in art? It is usually mixed with impressions or feelings, while the content is above all thoughts. No disease can lend us thoughts. Thoughts can neither be found in books nor ‘caught’ like the flu (again, I am talking about real art, which is always not borrowed and is as original as it is strong; as strong as it is original).

I am curious: why haven’t those who like to deduce genius from the creator’s illness yet come across another fruitful idea: the connection not of illness, but of sin with genius? It would have been a good theory! After all, as it is easy to see, creators are almost universally great sinners; their relationship with morality is much more difficult than that of the average bourgeois… But the idea of sin as ‘the source of creativity’, fortunately, has not taken root in the mind…

Timofey Sherudilo.
From the book Knowledge and Creativity. Essays on Cullture.

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