p The artistic attitudes of the society concerned are aesthetic consciousness. It embraces aesthetic feelings, tastes, interests, notions, ideals, and the concept of beauty.

p The aesthetic consciousness was generated in ancient times by the requirements of man’s labour. Labour also underlay the ability to assess reality aesthetically (i. e. through aesthetic feelings), and the development of artistic imagination and artistic thinking.

p Aesthetic. is a higher-theoretical-level of the aesthetic consciousness. It is a science of art, a theory of art dealing with the subject matter of art and its relation towards reality, artistic methods, and artistic criteria, art genres, and so on. Aesthetic theory arises in a class society, is a component of the ideology of the class in question, and as such expresses its essential aesthetic and other interests.

p Art is a specific form of social consciousness reflecting reality in artistic terms.

p Under the head of art come architecture, painting, sculpture, literature, music, dancing, the theatre, and the cinema; such special arts as photography, the circus, pop culture, and television; the applied arts (industrial design, the decoration of sports facilities); individual sports 163 events (rhythmic gymnastics, figure skating); interior decoration, landscaping, etc.

p Common to all art forms is their depiction of reality through, say, music, painting, etc. The artistic quality of art is distinctive and common to all art forms.

p Art has a cognitive function, influences the formation of a person’s character and shapes his ideas and feelings. Art is progressive if it reflects progressive ideas.

p In a class society, art is of a class character. On the other hand, in a society of antagonistic classes, too, there are authors, artists, etc. whose work is linked with the interests and strivings of the workers and with progressive ideology. That is why their works transcend the confines of their own age and retain their significance for subsequent generations. Such are the works of Theodore Dreiser, Bernard Shaw, Romain Holland, Thomas Mann, Ernest Hemingway, and many others. Their common feature is belief in man, and a vigorous protest against the oppression and humiliation of the people.

p Soviet art and literature have assimilated the best creations of the world’s classical literature and, of course, of the literature of the Soviet peoples. Soviet art and literature have absorbed the critical realism in the works of Pushkin, Gogol, Nekrasov, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Repin, Mussorgsky and others.

p At the same time, Soviet art is a new development in art in the conditions of a new, socialist, social system.

p Art is a most important factor influencing people’s life and a factor of aesthetic education. Soviet art is based on socialist realism, the main principle of which is to give a true portrayal of reality in its revolutionary development in line with the Marxist-Leninist world outlook.

p Soviet art is never indifferent to questions of society’s development. On the contrary, its function is to promote education of people in the spirit of internationalism, Soviet patriotism, and dedication to the interests of the state. Socialist art is centred on tightening its ties with the people, on accurate and artistic representation of the multifarious socialist reality, on vividly depicting all that is new and genuinely communist, and on exposing everything that impedes society’s progress.

p Folk art exercises a tremendous direct influence on the arts. This is true for all classes. Art is all the more progressive if it is linked with the creative endeavours of the popular masses, and if it is realistic. Art that is remote from the life of the people is barren, lacking in content, and close to total ideological and artistic failure.

p As has been shown by the practice of socialist construction in the USSR and other socialist countries, socialism creates conditions for art to 165 be assimilated by the masses, for talent to develop and art to flourish in all ways and all national forms. The popular essence of art is all the more pronounced under socialism, and so is its basic principle-accurate portrayal of reality. Continuing the revolutionary and critical tendency of the realism of the past, socialist realism portrays the ugly face of capitalism and exposes capitalist survivals, vigorously opposes naturalism, formalism, deideologisation, and isolation of art from reality and from the people.

p Socialist realism is dynamic and has a distinct purpose. It challenges the artist to keep pace with life, to look ahead, to be a revolutionary romanticist, in a certain sense, and to see romanticism in the everyday struggle for a better future.

Art enters a new, higher, level in the environment of developed socialism: art forms and styles become ever more numerous and varied, folk and amateur arts flourish, and the workers’ aesthetic tastes become more refined.