255

p How right is our distinguished author? In order to answer this question we shall first examine his definition of the beautiful. The beautiful is life, he says, and, basing himself on this definition, he seeks to explain why we like blossoming plants, for example. "What pleases us in plants is their freshness of colour and their luxuriant richness of form, indicative of fresh, vigorouslife. A wilting plant is not beautiful; a plant in which there is little vital sap is not beautiful.” This is very wittily said and to a certain extent quite true. But the difficulty is this. We know that primitive tribes, for example, Bushmen, Australians and other “savages”, who are at the same level of development, never adorn themselves with flowers, although they live in places that are very rich in them. Modern ethnology has firmly established the fact that the tribes in question take their ornamental motifs exclusively from the animal world. Thus it follows that these savages are not at all interested in plants and that Chernyshevsky’s witty remarks just quoted by us are quite inapplicable to their psychology. Why are they inapplicable? To this one can reply that they (the savages) do not as yet possess the tastes that are characteristic of a normally developed person. But 256 this is a subterfuge, not the real answer. Wherein lies the criterion with the help of which we determine what tastes are normal and what abnormal? Ghernyshevsky would probably have said that this criterion must be sought in human nature. But human nature itself changes together with the course of cultural development: the nature of a primitive hunter is quite different from that of a seventeenth-century Parisian, and the nature of a seventeenth-century Parisian possessed certain essential features which we would seek for in vain in the nature of the Germans of our day, etc. And this is not all. In each given period the nature of the people in a certain class in society is in many respects different from the nature of people in another class. What is one to do? Where is the answer to be found? Let us look for it first in the dissertation which we are examining.

p Chernyshevsky says: "Among the common people, the ’good life’, ’life as it should be’ means having enough to eat, living in a good house, and having enough sleep. But at the same time the peasant’s conception of life always contains the concept—work: it is impossible to live without work; indeed, life would be dull without it. As a consequence of a life of sufficiency, accompanied by hard but not exhausting work, the peasant lad or peasant maiden will have a very fresh complexion and rosy cheeks—the first attribute of beauty according to the conceptions of (lie common people. Working hard, and therefore being sturdily built, the peasant girl, if she gets enough to eat, will be buxom—this too is an essential attribute of the village beauty: rural people regard the ’ethereal’ society beauty as decidedly ’plain’, and are even disgusted by her, because they are accustomed to regard ’skinniness’ as the result of illness or of a ’sad lot’. Work, however, does not allow one to get fat: if a peasant girl is fat, it is regarded as a kind of malady, they say she is ’flabby’, and the people regard obesity as a defect; [...) in the descriptions of feminine beauty in our folk songs you will not find a single attribute of beauty that does not express robust health and a balanced constitution, which are always the result of a life of sufficiency and constant real hard, but not exhausting, work. The society beauty is entirely different. For a number of generations her ancestors have lived without performing physical work. In a life of idleness, little blood flows to the limbs. With every new generation the muscles of the arms and legs grow feebler, the bones become thinner. An inevitable consequence of all this is small hands and feet—they are the symptoms of the only kind of life the upper classes of society think possible—life without physical work. If a society lady has big hands and feet, it is regarded either as a defect, or as a sign that she does not come from a good, ancient family.... True, good health can never lose its value for a man, for even in a life of sufficiency and luxury, 257 bad health is a drawback. Hence, rosy cheeks and the freshness of good health are still attractive for society people also; but sickliness, frailty, lassitude and languor also have the virtue of beauty in their eyes as long as they seem to be the consequence of a life of idleness and luxury. Pallid cheeks, languor and sickliness have yet another significance for society people: peasants seek rest and tranquility, but people who belong to educated society, who do not suffer from material want and physical fatigue, but often suffer from ennui resulting from idleness and the absence of material cares, seek the ’thrills, excitement and passions’ which lend colour, diversity and attraction to an otherwise dull and colourless society life. But thrills and ardent passions soon wear a person out. How can one fail to be charmed by a beauty’s languor and paleness when they are a sign that she has lived a ’fast life’?"

p What does this mean? It means that art reproduces life, but life, "the good life, life as it should be”, is different in different classes.

Why is it different? The long passage just quoted by us leaves no doubt as to the reason: it is .different because the economic position of these classes is different. Ghernyshevsky has explained this very well. Thus we are justified in saying that people’s ideas about life, and therefore their concept of beauty, change in connection with the course of the economic development of society. But if this is so the question arises as to whether Chernyshevsky was right in challenging so firmly the idealist aestheticians who maintained that the beautiful in reality leaves man dissatisfied and that in this dissatisfaction lie the reasons which lead him to engage in creative activity. Chernyshevsky argued that the beautiful in reality is superior to the beautiful in art. In a certain sense this is an indisputable truth, but only in a certain sense. Art reproduces life; this is so. But we have seen that according to Chernyshevsky the idea of life, "of the good life, life as it should be" is not the same for people belonging to different social classes. How will a person from a lower social class regard the life that is led by the upper class and the art that reproduces the life of this upper class? One is bound to assume that, if he has begun to think in accordance with his own class position, he will regard both this life and this art in a negative light. If he has any relation to artistic creation, he will want to reform the prevailing ideas about art—and the ideas that prevail for the time being are usually those of the upper class—he will begin to “create” in his own, new way. Then it will be seen that his artistic creation owes its origin to the fact that he is not satisfied with the beautiful which he finds in reality. It can, of course, be said that his own creation will merely reproduce the life, the reality, which is good according

17—0766

258 to the ideas of his own class. However it is not this life, not this reality, that prevail, but the life and the reality that have been created by the upper class and that are reflected in the prevailing school of art. Thus, if Chernyshevsky is right, the idealist school which he is challenging is not completely wrong. Let us take an example. In French society of the time of Louis XV there prevailed certain ideas about life and what it should be, which found expression in the different branches of artistic activity. These ideas were the ideas of the declining aristocracy. They were not shared by the spiritual representatives of the middle estate, which was striving for its emancipation; quite the reverse, these representatives subjected them to sharp, merciless criticism. And when these representatives themselves embarked upon artistic activity, when they created their own artistic schools, they did so because they were not satisfied with the beautiful which was found in the reality that was created, represented and defended by the upper class. Here, then, without a doubt, the matter proceeded as it was portrayed by the idealist aestheticians in their theories. Moreover, even artists belonging t the upper class itself might not have been satisfied with the beautiful which they found in reality, because life dees not stand still, because it develops and because its development produces a lack of correspondence between what is and what, in people’s opinions, should be. Thus, in this respect the idealist aestheticians were by no means mistaken. Their mistake lies elsewhere. For them the beautiful was the expression of the absolute idea, the development of which, according to them, was the foundation of all world, and consequently, all social process. Feuerbach was perfectly right in revolting against idealism. Just as his pupil Chernyshevsky was by no means mistaken in revolting against the idealist teaching on art: He was perfectly right iii saying that the beautiful is life "as it should be" and that art in general reproduces "the good life”. His mistake was simply that he did not understand fully how human ideas of “life” develop in history. "The view of art,” he said, "accepted by us proceeds from the views accepted by the modern Geiman aestheticians and emerges from them through the dialectical process, the direction of which is determined by the general ideas of modern science.” This is true. But Chernyshevsky’s aesthetic views were only the embryo of the correct view of art which, in assimilating and perfecting the dialectical method of old philosophy, at the same time rejects its metaphysical basis and appeals to concrete social life, not to the abstract absolute idea. Chernyshevsky was unable to adhere firmly to the dialectical viewpoint, hence there was a very considerable element of metaphysics in his own ideas about life and art. He divided human needs into natural and artificial ones; in accordance with this, "life” 259 too seemed to him partly normal, in so far as it corresponded to natural needs, but partly, and for the most part at that, abnormal, in so far as its mode was determined by man’s artificial needs. Using this criterion, it was easy to reach the conclusion that the life of all the upper classes of society was abnormal. And from here it was but a step to the conclusion that art which expressed this abnormal life in various periods was false art. But society was already divided into classes in the remote days when it began to emerge from the savage state. Thus, Chernyshevsky had to recognise the whole historical life of mankind as mistaken and abnormal and declare as more or less false all the ideas of life that had emerged on this abnormal ground throughout this long period of time. Such a view of history and the development of human ideas could have been, and was, at times, a powerful instrument of struggle in periods of social change, in periods of “negation”.  And it is not surprising that our enlighteners of the sixties adhered to it strongly. But it could not serve as an instrument for the scientific explanation of the historical process. Therefore it could not provide the basis of the scientific aesthetics of which Belinsky once dreamed and which does not pronounce judgment—this is not a matter for "theoretical reason"—but explains. Chernyshevsky rightly called art the reproduction of “life”. But precisely because art reproduces “life”, scientific aesthetics, or rather, a correct teaching on art, could have a firm foundation only when a correct teaching on “life” emerged. Feuerbach’s philosophy contained only a few hints at such a teaching. Therefore the teaching on art which was based on it lacked a firm scientific basis.

p Such are the general remarks that we wished to make concerning Chernyshevsky’s aesthetic theory. As for the details, we shall mention only the following here.

p In Russian literature there has been much irate criticism of the above-quoted comparison according to which art is to life as an engraving is to a painting, which Chernyshevsky made in order to explain his idea that people value artistic creations not because the beautiful in reality does not satisfy them, but because they do not have access to it for some reason or other. But this idea is by no means as unfounded as Chernyshevsky’s critics think. In painting one can point to many such artistic creations the aim of which is to give people the opportunity to enjoy albeit a copy of the reality which attracts them. Chernyshevsky referred to pictures portraying seascapes. And he was right to a large extent. Many such pictures owed their existence to the fact that people, Dutchmen, for example, loved the sea and wished to enjoy views of it even when it was far away from them. We find something of the kind in Switzerland also. The Swiss love their mountains, but they cannot enjoy real Alpine 17* 260 views all the time: tho vast majority of the population of this country lives in valleys and foothills; that is why many painters there—Lugardon and others—reproduce these views. It does not occur to either the public or the painters themselves that these works of art are more beautiful than reality. But they remind them of it, and this is enough to make people like them, enough to make them value them. Thus we see some indisputable facts that speak clearly in Ghernyshevsky’s favour. But there are other facts that speak against him, and they deserve our attention.

p The fam3us French Romantic painter Delacroix remarks in his diary that the pictures of the equally famous David are a singular mixture of realism and idealism.  [260•*  This is quite true, and—which is most impartant for us here—it is true not only with respect to David alone. It is true in general of all art that expresses the aspirations of new social strata that are striving for their emancipation. The life of the ruling class appears abnormal, deserving of condemnation, to the new, emjrgent and dissatisfied class. And therefore the devices of the artists who reproduce this life do not satisfy it either, and appear artificial to it. The new class puts forward its own artists who, in their struggle with the old school, appeal to life, act as realists. But the life to which they appeal is "the good life, life as it should be" ... according to the ideas of the new class. This life is not yet fully established, however, for the new class is still only striving for its emancipation; to a considerable extent it is still an ideal.  Therefore the art, too, created by the representatives of the new class will be "a singular mixture of realism and idealism”. And one cannot say of art which is such a mixture that it strives to reproduce the beautiful that exists in reality. No, such artists are not and cannot be satisfied with reality; they, like the whole class they represent, want partly to alter and partly to add to it in accordance with their ideal.  In respect of these artists and this art Ghernyshevsky’s idea was wrong. But it is interesting that Russian art, too, during Ghernyshevsky’s day was a singular and very attractive mixture of realism and idealism. This fact explains why applied to this art Chernyshevsky’s theory, which demanded strict realism, was too narrow.

p But Chernyshevsky himself was the son—a great son!—of his timss. He himself not only did not stand aloof from the progressive ideals of his day, but was their most devoted and staunch champion. Therefore his theory, while defending strict realism, nevertheless allotted a place to idealist also. Chernyshevsky says that art not only reproduces life, but also interprets it, serves as a textbook of life. He himself was interested in art 261 mainly as a textbook of life, and in his critical articles he set himself the aim of helping artists interpret the phenomena of life. His literary follower Dobrolyubov acted likewise; suffice it to recall his famous and truly excellent article "When Will the True Day Come?" written in connection with Turgenev’s novel On the Eve. In this article Dobrolyubov says: "The artistwriter.while not concerning himself with any general conclusions on the state of social thought and morality, is always able, however, to grasp their most important features, to illumine them brightly and place them right before thinking people; This is why \ve assume that as soon as talent, i.e., the ability to feel and portray the living truth of phenomena, is recognised in an artist-writer, by virtue of this very recognition his works’ provide a legitimate reason for discussing the environment, the age, which inspired this or that work in the writer. And here the measure of the writer’s talent will be hew broadly he has^^1^^ encompassed life, how strong and diverse are the images which he has created.” In accordance with this Dcbrolyubov made the main task of literary criticism "to explain those phenomena of reality •which have produced a given literary work”. 1 bus, the aesthetic theory of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov was itself a singular mixture of realism and idealism. In explaining the phenomena of life, it was not content to note that which is, but also, and even primarily, pointed to that which should be. It rejected existing reality and in this sense served to express the “negative” trend of that time. But it was unable "to develop the idea of negation”, as Belinsky once said with reference to himself; it was unable to connect this idea with the objective course of development of Russian social life, in short, it was unable to give it a sociological basis. And herein lay its main shortcoming. But as long as they adhered to Feuerbach’s viewpoint, they could rot remedy or even notice this shortcoming. It becomes noticeable only from the viewpoint of Marx’s teaching.

p Space does not permit us to criticise Chernyshevsky’s individual propositions. We shall therefore confine ourselves to one more remark only. Chernyshevsky firmly rejected the idealist definition of the sublime as the expression of the idea of the infinite. He was right, because by the idea of the infinite the idealists understood the absolute idea, for which there was no place in the doctrine of Feuerbach-Chernyshevsky. But he was wrong in saying that although the content of the sublime can lead us to various thoughts that strengthen the impression which we receive from it, in itself the object that produces this impression is sublime independently of these thoughts. It follows logically from^this that the sublime exists in itself, independently of our thoughts about it. In Chernyshevsky’s opinion, it is the actual object which we regard as sublime, and not the mood which 262 it arouses. Bat he is disproved by his own examples. He says that Mont Blanc and Kazbek are majestic mountains, but no one will say that they are infinitely great. This is true; but nor will anyone say that they are majestic in themselves, independently of the impression that they make on us. The same must be said about the beautiful also. According to Ghernyshevsky, it transpires, on the one hand, that the beautiful in reality is beautiful in itself; but, on the other hand, he himself explains that only that which corresponds to our idea of the good life, of "life as it should be" seems beautiful to us. Thus, objects are not beautiful in themselves.

These mistakes by our author are explained, to put it briefly, by his lack of a dialectical view of things, which we have already indicated. He was unable to find the true connection between the object and the subject, to explain the course of ideas by the course of things. Therefore he inevitably contradicted himself and in spite of the whole spirit of his philosophy attributed objective importance to certain ideas. But this mistake too could be noticed only when Feuerbach’s philosophy, which formed the basis of Ghernyshevsky’s aesthetic theory, had already become a "surpassed stage”. For its time, however, our author’s dissertation was nevertheless a most serious and interesting work.