Date: 09-28-2025
Tags: creativity
Source: Journals Randolph Black
Last night I listened to a podcast discussing Leo Tolstoy’s essay, What is Art, & it captivated me. Mainly the idea, which seems so obvious in hindsight, but which has long eluded me, that art is a form of communication. It is a way for the artist to draw others into an intimate connection with her inner world, & above all:
In the same way that language is used to communicate information, so is art used to communicate emotion.
This is a profound insight to me. For so long I’ve been asking myself, What is my purpose as an artist? What even is art? Why go through all of this trouble—sacrificing financial stability, plunging into the depths of my unconscious & nearly losing myself in that labyrinth—what is the justification for all of this?
I have known that the ultimate goal of my efforts & sacrifices has been to find my purpose, my contribution, my vocation, if you will. & I’ve also known that, since I am an artist, these are one & the same with my “art.” So my purpose is to create art that contributes to the world in some way, this I have known. It’s the specific contours of that contribution that have been oblique to me. & since my unique artistic contribution has been unclear to me, though I’ve caught glimpses here & there, I have doubted its significance. I have doubted whether all of this trouble I’ve gone through to make myself a vessel through which it can be channeled is worth it.
For as long as I can remember, & especially since I began to notice the increasing bitter division between human beings, I have desired unity & understanding. I have longed to transcend the arbitrary barriers that separate us from one another, & to somehow create a bridge between us. This hasn’t been some sort of Pollyanna, do-gooder agenda, or even an aspiration arisen from my ego, but rather a deep & even painful longing of my soul.
Tolstoy says that art has the power to do this. When an artist can truly convey an emotion that she herself has lived through, in such a way that the person receiving the artwork is able to experience the emotion for themselves, this is when barriers are dissolved, & human beings are brought closer together.
To Tolstoy, the greatest art communicates feelings that unite people in love, compassion, & the recognition of our common humanity.
If I can accomplish this; if I can have any sort of impact that moves humanity in the direction of unity & compassion; if I can evoke in others feelings of love for their fellows, this will have been worth everything I’ve been going through.
Tolstoy says that the role of the artist is not a luxury or an “extra,” but something essential to the survival of humanity. He believed that in order for human beings to co-exist, we need an emotional understanding of one another. A “shared inner life.” Art brings what’s within out into the world to provide shared emotional experiences, & this is essential for empathy amongst human beings. Especially those from very different backgrounds. Without a constant exchange of feelings, Tolstoy believed that society would fragment.
True “progress,” according to Tolstoy isn’t technological or economic, it’s the growth of love & brotherhood. Art is the engine for that progress because it continually widens the circle of people we can emotionally identify with. Without art, humanity would remain at a primitive stage, trapped in selfishness & mutual incomprehension.
Tolstoy saw art as a conduit of shared life. The artist is tasked not merely with self-expression, but conscious transmission of experience. This is how the artist creates bridges between souls & how individual feelings can be shared by humankind.
I’d like to just jot down Tolstoy’s definition of “art”:
Art: The activity by which one person consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands to others the feelings (s)he has lived through.
(Art is not merely about creating beauty or representing reality. It is primarily about sharing an inner experience, so others can feel it too.)
This insight hit me with such profundity that it made its way into my dream last night.
Quote
“What is art? Like a declaration of Love: The consciousness of our dependence on each other. A confession. An unconscious act that reflects the true meaning of life.”
Quote
Women Who Run with the Wolves - Clarissa Pinkola Estes“Some say the creative life is in ideas, some say it is in doing. It seems in most instances to be in a simple being. It is not virtuosity, although that is very fine in itself. It is the love of something, having so much love for something—whether a person, a word, an image, an idea, the land, or humanity—that all that can be done with the overflow is to create. It is not a matter of wanting to, not a singular act of will; one solely must.” - pg. 322
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