Art: The Medium Through Which Many Become One

At first glance, it can be quite easy to view Tolstoy’s and Nietzsche’s explanations of art to be two completely different things. It is important not to let the complexity of their writings fool you into thinking such things however. Upon taking a closer look one can see that the authors’ two different approaches to describe art actually end up meeting at similar conclusions.

Tolstoy talks about art in terms of how “infectious” it is. To most people, the word “infectious” generally has very negative or bad overtones. This is not the case for Tolstoy’s description of art. He uses the word as a way to rate how much a piece of art can channel the feeling, emotions, and experiences of the artist to anyone who views it. On page 179 Tolstoy writes, “All this, if only the boy when telling the story, again experiences the feelings he had lived through, and infects the hearers and compels them to feel what he had experience—is art.” The better the work is able to convey these feelings and experiences onto the viewer, the higher the quality of that art.

Nietzsche on the other hand, describes art in a different manner. He believes that art is defined by its ability to collapse the principium individuationis. The term principium individuationis is latin for “the principle of individuation”. This principle upholds the importance of being an individual (i.e. being self-reliant and having personal independence). Nietzsche says that art breaks down this individualism. The method in which it does this is what makes Tolstoy and Nietzsche so similar.

Both philosophers believe that the infectiousness or the collapsing of the principium individuationis originates from a very primal instinct within man or as Nietzsche put it, “…wells from the innermost depths of man…” (164). Since art effects all people, all the way down to their core, it has the ability to momentarily erase our individualism and unite us together. Tolstoy says this another way when he writes, “If a man is infected by the author’s condition of soul, if he feels this emotion and this union with others, then the object which has effected this is art” (179). While Tolstoy and Nietzsche differ on the vehicle in which to describe art, they still manage to observe the same effect art has on people. Both men understand that art has the power to break down barriers between people, and can if only for a split second, bring us all together as we gaze at something beautiful.