Blog 7: Nietzsche vs. Tolstoy

Nietzsche’s discussion of art revolves around the concept of art influenced by the Apollonian and Dionysian components of nature. He states that most of the world today is structured under the Apollonian, through which principium individuationis is at work. This concept is kind of like self-awareness and individuality. He equates this with restraint and order, and a dream-like state where everything is ideal. On the other hand, the Dionysian is a state in which the self is forgotten, and revelry and energy are rampant. It is in this state that Nietzsche argues true art is created and “the union between man and man [is] reaffirmed” p. 165. This occurs when principium individuationis, which is usually what state man lives in order to live without chaos and disorderliness, collapses and gives way to the Dionysian.
I might’ve made these concepts too simplistic, but I found two similarities between this way of thinking and Tolstoy’s. Tolstoy’s views on art center around three important characteristics: individuality, clearness, and sincerity. Without these, he argues that a piece cannot be considered art, for it does not contain the components necessary to have a successful “infection” of meaning from the artist to the spectator. Most important to “infecting” the spectator is sincerity in art. I think that the sincerity Tolstoy speaks of would produce an artwork with an effect similar to the Dionysian state of passion and creativity, because sincerity will create an action that is truly human just as the Dionysian state produces true human feeling. To use his own words, he states that “if the work does not transmit the artist’s peculiarity of feeling and is therefore not individual, if it is unintelligibly expressed, or if it has not proceeded from the author’s inner need for expression—it is not a work of art.” So, in order for there to be a true, worldly connection between one human and another, through art, there must be a transmittance of the unique, creative feeling the artist felt when they created the work. When this happens, this true, creative feeling, which comes when the artist lets go of principium individuationis, is conveyed to another person so that they can feel the same sensation when experiencing it. Thus I think that there is a Dionysian basis to the sincerity Tolstoy values so highly in art.
Additionally, the Dionysian is generally associated with the lower class, whereas Apollonian is associated with the elite. Similarly, Tolstoy believed true sincerity could only be created in peasant art, because the upper-class creates art “actuated by personal aims of covetousness or vanity.” Ultimately, I think that both Tolstoy and Nietzsche wish art to exist without the constraints of money, society, and rules, and when it is free of these things, it will be in its best and most natural form.