53 54 55

p A. Zis

p Defining the social essence of art consists not only in clarifying the object of reflection and the means of reflection (the gnosiological aspect), but also in eliciting its role and place in the life of society and the content of those social needs and interests with which its existence and the trend of its development are connected (the sociological aspect). The elucidation of the nature of art in its sociological aspect and the characterising of it as a bearer of a definite ideology complement in an essential way the eliciting of the essence of art on the gnosiological level as a reflection of social being; in this the active role of the subject of reflection in the process of artistic creation is revealed with particular depth. The combination of all these factors finds expression in the axiological approach to the analysis of art.

p In the view of a number of researchers, the unique character of artistic reflection (as opposed to scientific reflection, for example) consists in the fact that it is combined with a value-bearing approach to the assimilation of phenomena. However, such an approach is by no means characteristic only of artistic assimilation but also enters into the process of scientific cognition. Eliciting the specific features of artistic cognition is, therefore, coupled with revealing the nature of artistic value itself. In this context we distinguish between an evaluation of real phenomena by art and an examination of art itself as an artistic value.

p The axiological aspects in studying the nature of art is necessary, but by no means because the concept of “reflection”, ’token by itself, does not contain an active, creative element. Precisely the reverse is true: it is the active nature of reflection that stimulated us 56 to interpret theoretically the axiological principle as an indispensable element in artistic cognition.

p It must be noted that in the work of a number of proponents of the axiological conception of art such concepts as “artistic value" and “artistic truth" are divorced from and opposed to each other. “Artistic truth" in this view is regarded as a non-essential concept, lacking the significance of an artistic value. However the axiological approach can be fruitful only provided that it is not opposed to the gnosiological approach but proceeds, on the contrary, from a recognition of the organic unity of cognition and evaluation.

p The classic works of Marxist-Leninist philosophy have always regarded art as an artistic value and brought to light the ideological and aesthetic evaluation of the phenomena portrayed in artistic works through analysing the latter. In Lenin’s works on Tolstoy, which represent a model for the application of the theory of reflection to the analysis of concrete artistic phenomena, an axiological element is contained within the very combination of the two ideas of “mirror” and “Russian revolution”. By defining the work of the great writer as a mirror of the Russian revolution, Lenin elicits the value-bearing character of Tolstoy’s art and evaluates it.

p Spiritual values embody the aims and ideals of people. In a class society art expresses those spiritual and aesthetic values which promote awareness of the community of interests of particular classes and serve as a support in the class struggle. Art reflects reality through the prism of class interests; it expresses and defends the interests of a class and it is in this that its ideological function consists.

p In emphasising the historical and class roots of art, MarxismLeninism does not detach it from the sphere of those unchanging values which are common to all mankind. When, for example, Plekhanov said that Skryabin’s music was “his time expressed in sounds”, he added that “when the temporary and transient finds expression in the work of a great artist, it acquires a permanent significance and becomes unchanging”.  [56•1  Thus, Plekhanov both evaluated the work of this outstanding artist and expressed a more general idea which is very important for the understanding of art as a social and historical phenomenon.

p Social consciousness does not mean simply ideas belonging to a particular time and to particular social formations. Its 57 development contains “eternal” principles producing contunuity in the spiritual development of humanity. The scale and character of these universal elements in various forms of social consciousness, such as philosophy, morals and art, are not identical. They occupy a larger place in art than in other areas of spiritual life.

p Life in its many facets and the basic trends of each era’s historical development are reflected in the whole complex of the forms of social consciousness. None of these forms, taken by itself, can exhaust the abundance of links and relationships of life. Forms of social consciousness do not develop in isolation, free from links with one another, but enter into definite relationship, enriching one another. Substantive interrelationships arise between art and other forms of ideology.

p Marxist-Leninist aesthetics fully takes into account the specific features of art while at the same time bringing together art and politics, art and philosophy, art and morals, etc. In the absence of links with other forms of ideology, art cannot fulfil its social mission. Some of the more fundamental links and relationships between art and other forms of ideology are described below.

p Art and Politics. The problem of the correlation between art and politics has most frequently been resolved in idealist aesthetics in one way only: namely, by the proposition that art and politics are completely different by nature and fulfil completely different functions. Those supporting this proposition refer to the fact that the object of politics is temporary and transient, while that of art is eternal and universal. They define art and politics as incompatible and even mutually inimical phenomena. The well-known aesthetic philosopher, Benedetto Croce, seeking to isolate art as absolutely autonomous and absolutely free activity from everything practical, rates any art that is connected with politics as quasi-art. The British aesthetician, R.G.Collingwood, a follower of Croce, develops the latter’s ideas, and, while disclaiming “hostility” to an art dedicated to the service of politics, or even “inspired by the wish to inculcate communistic sentiments”, nevertheless qualifies such art only as “magical art" rather than as art proper. In Collingwood’s view, any aspiration on the part of the creator of any work to evoke definite political emotions among his audience can, at best, be “serviceable” to politics but not to artistic creation.  [57•1  The involvement of hundreds of millions of people in active political life is a characteristic feature of our age. In capitalist countries the class struggle in all its forms, including that of ideology, is growing ever more acute. Under these conditions the 58 organic link of art and politics is becoming especially evident, and denial of this link and propagation of the idea that art is “independent" of politics is nothing more than a way of defending reactionary political ideas.

p The entire experience of art throughout the world testifies to the fact that it is not “independent” art but, on the contrary, militant and publicistic art, closely bound up with life and subject to the influence of advanced political ideas, that finds a place in the treasure-house of artistic culture. It is quite natural that even foreign artists far removed from communist ideology are beginning with increasing frequency to take the view that in contemporary art a truthful psychological image cannot be created if its creator does not take into account in his work social interrelationships, the product of which is human personality.

p The link between art and politics and the dependence of art on politics enter organically into the consciousness of contemporary man: this is especially true of every conscientious artist. The poet Alexander Blok called upon Russian intellectuals to “listen to the revolution”; today, Cuban writer Virgilio Pinera states the need for his artistic confreres to set their watches by the clock of the revolution.

p As early as 1928, the outstanding Polish theatrical figure Leon Schiller wrote, in expounding what was both his artistic and his social credo:

p “Direction?

p “To the left and straight ahead.

p “Orientation?

p “Present-day life. Its needs and aspirations. The struggle for the moral and social structure of tomorrow.”

p Leon Schiller called upon artists to draw their inspiration from a feeling of responsibility not to “eternity” but to the masses of their own time, whose service was the function of art.

p The de-ideologisation of art, an idea very characteristic of bourgeois aesthetics, has already been subjected to critical examination earlier in this article. However, another trend has also become apparent in bourgeois aesthetic writings in recent years (albeit incorrectly interpreted)—that of the politicisation of art. From this point of view “Art and Politics”, a paper read by Mikel Dufrenne at the 7th International Congress of Aesthetics, is highly characteristic. Dufrenne correctly notes that in our time the relationship of art and politics has become a topical issue and that the politicisation of artistic creation is not infrequently attracting the artists themselves. His resolution of this issue, which he interprets in a nihilistic rather- than a revolutionary way, is, more than 59 anything else, Marcusian in character; however, in the given instance the point to be noted is not the way in which the issue is resolved, but the very fact of a definite turning away from an apolitical approach towards politics, which reflects both the growing part played by political ideas in the spiritual life of contemporary man and the significantly closer relationship of art and politics.

p The position in men’s lives occupied today by politics has changed. The opportunities for separating man’s “everyday”, private life from the central problems of politics are becoming more and more limited while man himself is increasingly becoming a “political animal”, even in his private life. It is important to note further that contemporary political life is permeated with drama and characterised by the fervour with which issues are debated, thereby providing extremely fertile soil for art.

p Such essential phenomena of contemporary art as political cinema, political theatre and political songs are highly typical in this respect. We are not talking here simply of art that is connected with politics, that cannot be separated from it and which is developing under its influence: in this sense, any art form, even those which seem very far removed from the most immediate problems of life, is always “political”. By political theatre, political cinema or political literature we mean the direct treatment by art of political problems and the incorporation of these problems into the artistic fabric of the work.

p The struggle between progressive artists and proponents of “pure” art ultimately reflects the struggle between classes. Art, in Gorky’s famous phrase, is always a battle “for” and “against”. It follows from this that the indivisibility of art and politics stems from the very nature of art.

p In Soviet society there is a firm and deep link between art and politics. Under the conditions of socialism politics exercises a fruitful influence on the development of art. The policies of the Communist Party represent a concentrated expression of the social interest. In a socialist society literature and art are organically linked to the life of the people and its fundamental aims and interests. Politics guides creative practice, helping it to reflect truthfully the life of the people and artistically comprehend the principal trends in the life of society.

p It is noteworthy in this connection that the well-known Soviet literary historian, Viktor Shklovsky, after rejecting ideas of the selfcontained value of art following long and painful reflection, arrived in later years at the clear conviction that “the colour of the banner means everything in poetry. The colour of the banner is the colour 60 of the soul, while the so-called soul has its second embodiment, too, in art”.  [60•1 

p While upholding the dependence of art on politics, MarxistLeninist aesthetics at the same time opposes any kind of simplification in interpreting this dependence. Simplification and vulgarisation here find expression in the fact that art is viewed simply as propaganda for political ideas and the content of art is reduced to the proclamation of political slogans alone. It is in just such an assertion of the simple and rigid link between politics and art that dogmatism in aesthetics shows itself. Dogmatists believe that the political and the artistic coexist in a work as two independent principles, the nature of the former defining the value of the latter: “first the political, then the artistic" is their watchword. This kind of crude approach is inimical to the nature of art. Art is not political ideology with an artistic veneer. Political meaning is inherent in the very artistic fabric of a work; it does not precede the creation of that fabric, nor does it have a separate life within it. “A writer’s talent,” A.I. Mikoyan observed in conversation with Ernest Hemingway, “his honesty, truthfulness and objectivity lead to the best of his works’ acquiring a political resonance".  [60•2 

p A crude, dogmatic conception of the link between art and politics is profoundly alien to the Marxist-Leninist understanding of art. Marx and Engels themselves protested against transforming the characters of fiction into mere mouthpieces for the spirit of the time and denied the admissibility of substituting the didactic illustration of political slogans for a true and diverse representation of reality. This, after all, inevitably leads to a reduction in artistic cogency and, consequently, to a reduction in the social effectiveness of art. The social and political significance of Soviet art is determined by its truthfulness and by its faithful representation and searching analysis of dominant trends in the life of our society.

p Art and Morals. The nature and objectives of art and, equally, the nature and objectives of morals lead necessarily to their influencing each other. Art is no more to be separated from morals than it is from politics.

p At the centre both of morals and art invariably lie problems that may be summed up under the formula: “the individual and society”. From this it follows that moral issues are always intimately bound up with art. The ethical is not “added on" to the 61 aesthetic: it is an organic part of art, arising from its humanistic nature. The aesthetic embraces the ethical.

p As the great Russian critic, Belinsky, made clear as early as the last century, art, being closely linked to morals, should not represent abstract vices and virtues. The objective of art is to bring out social types and shape living human characters; but, in representing people as members of society, art, by the same token, also characterises society itself and consequently represents morals and manners and assists in affirming some moral principles and counteracting others.

p Since the principal subject of art is always man in society and the relationship of man to man always concerns art, the latter, by the very fact of reflecting social relationships, resolves moral issues by means specific to art. The moral content of art is, consequently, not simply the result of the external influence of morals as a supposedly extra-aesthetic factor. On the contrary, the aesthetic embraces the ethical as a natural and inalienable element.

p When Tolstoy was writing the novel Resurrection, he said that he was composing an open letter to all men. Every example of great art represents such a letter and in virtue of the fact that it poses questions bearing on life and human relationships which are common and important to everyone, art cannot but be bound up with morals.

p Art is the affirmation of definite viewpoints on life. The progressive or reactionary nature of a particular viewpoint on life affirmed by art is conditioned by the character of an aesthetic ideal and by the truthful reflection of life. Deviation in art from truth to life is inevitably combined with the propagation of amoral principles and leads to the forfeiture by art of its ethical significance.

p The characters in Soviet art are “eternal companions" of Soviet man. Each affirms in a unique way the finest qualities of the morality and psychology of the new man, born of the socialist age. Fadeyev’s Levinson and Nikolai Ostrovsky’s Pavel Korchagin, Sholokhov’s Davydov and Nagulnov and Andrei Sokolov,. Zoya and the young heroes of Krasnodon of the last war are people who belong to different generations but share a common fate. They have entered into the’consciousness of tens of millions of people in Soviet society. Socialist art is a mighty force in the moral education of the people.

p The radical contrast between the humanism of the socialist world and the inhumanity of the world of class and other antagonisms is accentuated by the high moral note of art in the socialist countries and the amoralism of contemporary reactionary art.

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p Art and Philosophy. A direct expression of philosophical views can be found in such works as Goethe’s Faust and Tolstoy’s War and Peace. In these works purely philosophical problems relating to the nature of the world around us and the essence of being are woven into the fabric of the fictional narrative. But the artist does not always turn directly to philosophical problems. There are many works, in all media, that are in no way directly linked to philosophy. However, art is always internally bound up with philosophy; it contains a definite philosophical meaning and expresses a definite social ideal.

p Every truly artistic work possesses a sub-text: the artist aims not only at showing life as it is, but also at evoking thought about it and pointing to what it ought to be. This sub-text is also an expression of a social ideal which, whatever the subject represented, always makes its presence felt in art. The philosophical aspect is not something extrinsic to art, “put into" a work as it were; art is philosophical by its very nature, since it always conducts a dialogue with man on the meaning of life, helping him to penetrate the concealed essence of being and influencing the formation of his view of the world.

p The philosophical depth of a work depends to a considerable extent on its creator’s view of the world. The more progressive the social, philosophical and aesthetic views of the artist, the stronger the grounds for expecting artistic generalisation of a truly philosophical character and significance in his work. Art, which forms men’s ideals in the light of a definite view of the world, function as the distinctive artistic philosophy of an age. It is important to note this circumstance, the more so that philosophical systems often exercise their influence on people indirectly, through art, rather than directly. Philosophical ideas in the medium of art frequently possess greater vitality than they do in their abstract form. The essential factor is not that particular artists, writers, etc. are directly acquainted with individual philosophical schools and ideas, but rather the general philosophical “climate” in which the view of the world of those who create works of art is formed.

p Politics, morals, philosophy and art are forms of social consciousness intimately related to one another. This is because, first and foremost, all these forms, in various ways and through various relationships, perceive one and the same reality or different manifestations and aspects of the same reality and aim at influencing it. The link between art and both philosophy and science expresses its cognitive function, while its link with politics and morals expresses its ideological and educative function. In its relationships with these forms, art is revealed as artistic cognition 63 and the embodiment of scientific, philosophical, moral and political ideas. Inasmuch as these functions are inseparable, art is always akin to the above-mentioned forms of consciousness. Its relationship to religion is, however, different.

p Art and Religion are forms of social consciousness which Marx characterised as practical modes of spiritual activity and between which he thereby elicited a certain similarity (for example, the emotionality inherent in both, the characteristic part played by imagination in their formation, etc.). However, the nature of emotionality and the character of imagination differ fundamentally between art and religion. Idealist aesthetics seeks in every way possible to bring about a rapprochement between art and religion on the specific basis that the imagination plays an important role both in religion and in art. However, such a rapprochement is without foundation. Ludwig Feuerbach wrote in his Vorlesungen tiber das Wesen der Religion that the distinction between art and religion was that art did not require its creations to be presented as reality. Art is a transformed picture of the real world. Religious imagination, however, is identified with reality itself. As we know, this distinction was noted sympathetically in Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks. Religious imagination gives a distorted conception of the world; artistic imagination, however, represents a powerful means of perceiving the world. Thus, religion and art are opposed; an opposition which, in a certain sense, is analogous to the opposition existing between religion and science.

p Art reveals the truth of life; like science, it is an expression of man’s domination of reality. Religion, on the contrary, is an expression not of strength, but of man’s weakness, and reflects a situation in which the forces of nature and society dominate man and not vice versa. Art and science are related by their ability to reflect objective truth and express man’s dominance over the surrounding world, which in this respect places the former in opposition to religion.

p The proposition that art and religion are opposed may seem, at first glance, to contradict the familiar fact that until the 17th century art to a great extent developed in direct connection with various forms of religion and was heavily influenced by it. Thus, all ancient art was based on mythology (and mythology lay at the foundation of pagan religions); almost all medieval art, with the exception of a comparatively small branch of profane art, was subordinate to the church; and the overwhelming majority of even the brilliant works of the Renaissance were linked to religious subjects. These subjects frequently recurred in the art of later periods, as, for instance, in the famous picture by the outstanding 64 Russian painter of the 19th century, Alexander Ivanov, Christ Appears to the People, and Nikolai Ghe’s What Is the Truth?

p None of this in any way contradicts the fact that artistic and religious ideology are essentially opposed. However, the facts that have been noted must be correctly explained. Certain common features between art and religion gave rise to the possibility of their interaction; when the artistic principle dominated in this process of interpenetration works of genuine artistic values emerged in the form of mythology and religion.

p Artistic development was for many centuries inseparably linked to religion for a number of reasons.

p Firstly, pre-Christian religion took the form of mythology, and mythology was not only an expression of man’s helplessness in the face of the elements, but also represented the first attempts of artistic treatment of life in man’s imagination. Mythology represented both religion and an expression of the artistic creativity of peoples at the first stages of historical development. Ancient art could, therefore, draw on mythology for images and subjects. Marx called mythology the soil and arsenal of ancient art. Art leaned on mythology not because the former was nourished by religion but because the latter possessed, bound up inseparably with religious conceptions, a broader extra-religious content.

p For a certain period of time Christian mythology, too, played an analogous role in the development of art.

p Secondly, the development of art within the framework of religion during a long period of history is to be explained by the political dominance of the church. During the Middle Ages the church maintained control over all social relationships. The religious view of the world left a deep imprint on the entire life of society. Progressive men of learning and thinkers struggled against the dominance of the church, religious scholasticism and dogmatism; and this battle was also conducted in the field of art. But art was, as a whole, shackled by church dominance and possessed, in consequence, extremely limited opportunities for development outside the framework of religion, orders placed by the church, and church control. However, during the Renaissance, when new ideas and new conceptions of the world began to be reflected in art, the latter affirmed humanist, anti-clerical and antireligious principles.

p The power possessed by the art of the past and its immutable significance are determined by the truth of life contained within it and not by the religious colouration characteristic of particular periods of its development. Thus, it is quite evident that the 65 numerous “holy families”, “last suppers”, “depositions” and other traditional religious subjects that feature in the art of the Renaissance serve as occasion for the expression of joy and happiness, pain and suffering: the light and shade of man’s life.

p The struggle of the young revolutionary bourgeoisie against religion and the church also had an extremely positive impact on the development of art. By the 17th century it had almost completely freed itself from the encasement of religion and mythology and was beginning to reproduce reality without resort to mythological allegories. This extended the range of phenomena available to art to an extraordinary extent.

p It is true that in more recent times a link with religion has been retained within certain trends in art and in the work of individual artists, but this link has now acquired a completely new meaning. In the modern age art addresses religion at the invariable cost of a greater or lesser negative effect on creativity. Those facets of the work even of creative geniuses such as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky which are linked to religious questions and an urge to find a solution to life’s conflicts in the sphere of religion represent at the same time the weakest aspects of their work. Realism, the greatest achievement of art, is, by its nature, incompatible with religious ideology. Great realistic art destroys rather than strengthens religious feeling.

p A qualification must be entered at this point. The above does not exclude the possibility, even today, of utilising—in certain cases—mythological and religious images and subjects in the interests of reproducing reality in art. The Mexican painter, Jose Orozco, for example, has used a religious subject, “Christ Destroys His Cross”, for one of his works; but in his painting one sees not a god but a living man, endowed with a man’s earthly strength. Many other examples could be adduced.

p Thus, to recapitulate, art develops in inseparable interdependence with other forms of social consciousness. To sever these links is to deprive it of its life blood. Nothing remains of art if it is stripped of its cognitive significance, its ideological trend, its moral problems and its philosophical attitude to the world but pure form, which, by virtue of the very fact that it is “pure”, ceases even to be form and disintegrates into a chaos.

p But while emphasising the interdependence subsisting between art and other forms of social consciousness in respect of content, 66 Marxist-Leninist aesthetics notes simultaneously the relative independence of art. Art cannot be transformed into the popularisation or visual demonstration of scientific propositions or an abstract declaration of political or moral ideas. It is a selfcontained and specific form of human creative activity, reflecting life in the images of art. Art cannot be made auxiliary to other forms of social consciousness. Its use in an illustrative or declaratory role is fatal to the quality of the artistic and leads to the vulgarisation of art.

p The cognitive function of art and its function in the ideological and educative sphere are performed in the context of an organic link with art’s aesthetic function. The latter is specific to art and finds expression in two important consequences.

p Firstly, no form of social consciousness is capable of exercising an aesthetic influence on people to such an extent and so comprehensively as art. Through its decisive influence on the formation of aesthetic feelings, art teaches people to discern the beauty contained within the phenomena they encounter in life, to enjoy this beauty, introduce it into life and to create according to the laws of beauty. The aesthetic function of art consists in helping people to cultivate a definite social and aesthetic ideal and develop their artistic capacities. Lenin said that art must awaken artists among the people. Art gives rise to an inspiration and an emotion in man that are akin to the inspiration and emotion of the artist, the creator of the work of art. “I, too, am an artist!" exclaimed Corregio ecstatically before a painting by Raphael. The same feeling seizes everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, when gripped by the powerful fascination of art. In its development of a creative relationship to life, its creative capacity to transform life and ability to comprehend concretely and in their totality the essence of the phenomena of reality and evaluate them aesthetically art is beyond comparison with any other form of social consciousness.

Secondly, the cognitive function of art and its function in the ideological and educative sphere are performed not apart from but through the aesthetic influence of art. This means that the functions of art cannot be mechanically broken down. Just as art cannot perform its ideological and aesthetic function if it does not truthfully reflect life, so, too, the truth of life is unattainable in art if life is not reproduced according to the laws of art itself and the work of art has not acquired the status of an aesthetic value.