TOLSTOY'S "WHAT IS ART?"

That's Tolstoy pictured above. I was thumbing through his "What is Art?" today and I was reminded all over again of what a terrific thinker the man was. I don't always agree but it doesn't matter. The best best writers are worth reading whether you agree or not.

Here's (above) Tolstoy's definition of art. It has to do with the transmission of experience. I assume he means transmission with skill but he doesn't say that.

The word "infected" is important. It keeps coming up again and again. A great work of art infects its audience like a benign disease. They're mostly incapable of resisting the infection and they'll likely spread it to others. That's how art contributes to the spread of great ideas.

Some people through malice or stupidity are resistent to artistic infection and Tolstoy has no use for them. For Tolstoy critics fall into this category. I like critics myself. They're often wrong but they get useful arguments started and stimulate the market for art.

I wonder what Tolstoy would make of the picture of the grimacing boy above. My guess is that he'd hate it. He believed that in order to infect, a work of art has to be capable of infecting. In other words, it must contain an experience that people will welcome or that touches them deeply.

Tolstoy was a Christian and he believed that Christian themes are uniquely appealing because they deal with the universal brotherhood of man and exclude nobody. He said art can inadvertantly become exclusionary, appealing only to aristocrats or to people we'd call "hip" today. Amazingly he said Beethoven's Ninth was like that. It was something for the art crowd.

Examples of art he approved of were Dickens "Christmas Carol" and "David Copperfield" and Hugo's "Les Miserables."

Dickens also put a lot of stock in sincerity. The editor who wrote the preface thought this was ridiculous since, if you take it literally, it means that an actor who plays a killer must really want to kill the other actors. Maybe Tolstoy did take it to this extreme but the idea is still useful on some level.

Sincerity and earnestness is precicely what a lot of modern media lacks. It's a measure of the greatness of some writers that they dare to voice great truths even though the truths are intuitive and are often difficult to express with words.

MORE CARTOON ANATOMY!

How about a few more words on how laughter happens? I'm obsessed with finding out why the cheek enlarges so much, even for a smile as shown above. Mark Mayerson says the cheeks enlarge to accommodate the extra skin which is pushed out of the way by the smile. He's almost certainly right, but...well... where's the wrinkles you'd expect to see if skin was being packed that way? And why don't you see the skin traveling upward in steps, into the cheek?

I really shouldn't pursue this. The answer is probably obvious and I'm just being dense.

Here's a picture (above) that seems to confirm Mark's opinion. The cheeks don't bunch up much, maybe because the skin is spread all over the side of the face. Boy, this face resembles a screaming baboon!

The small picture on the lower left (above) is interesting. It shows the lower jaw receding backwards into the face as the woman laughs. The upper teeth don't seem to move much.


Of course it's an effort to hold a smile very long. You get tired of keeping the cheeks up. When the strain becomes unbearable (above) you stop supporting the cheeks and the meat collapses downward, back into it's home in the muzzle.

I've seen lots of flabby muzzles, especially on middle aged men and Star Wars fans.

ANATOMY FOR CARTOONISTS

Right now I'm reading "The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression" by Gary Faigin.

I must have seen this book in stores and on friends' shelves dozens of times and for some reason it never made an impression on me. Maybe all the formal anatomy put me off, maybe the author's drawing style failed to impress. It's funny how you can be indifferent to something one day and be utterly blown away by it the next. That's what happened here. I love this book now!

Here's a sample lesson dealing with the way we smile. I'll begin with a description of the human mouth. OK, think of the mouth as a Coke can. The teeth (above) wrap around the can then, at the ends, the mouth flares out a little to the side.

Here's (above, left) a downshot of the human muzzle at rest. The Coke can effect isn't evident because the muscles around the mouth are slack and sagging and cover up the can. The mouth is flat against the face.

Now the face smiles (above, right). The smile muscles pull back the skin around the mouth and stretch it in the direction of the ear. The Coke can is now revealed.

I know what you're thinking: what happened to the muscles that used to sag and droop around the muzzle? Where did they go? The answer is that they travelled up into the cheeks!!!! Um... well... don't quote me on that.

I'm ashamed to say that I don't know how muscles expand and contract. I assume the fibers elongate and contract like the straw tube in a Chinese finger trap. Whatever the real explanation I prefer to think that the mouth muscles have little legs and run up into the cheeks where they sit and play cards till the mouth is ready to normalize again. It's my blog so I can believe whatever I want.

The chin seems to raise a little when we smile. I suppose that's because the skin and muscles in that area stretch out and become thin. That dimple on the extreme left, next to the cheek, seems to indicate that a muscle up there is pulling on the chin.

Fascinating, isn't it!? I'll post more about this as I read it.


BTW, thanks to the commenter who recommended this book a couple of weeks ago!

BE BACK THURSDAY!

A commenter wrote in to say that "Dodsworth" will be on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) this Saturday at 5 pm! Is that 5 pm Pacific Time? I think so.

The film isn't for everybody. It's not cinematic and it's all talking -- no action. It's pure melodrama. What makes it worth watching is that in the details it manages to sketch out the author's image of an ideal man, which is close to my own.

It raises interesting questions about the nature of masculinity, the purpose of life and how it should be lived, and what romance consists of. If you hated my lion post you're not going to like this film because it's all about a human lion.

ME ON A HAPPY MEAL

I've been walking around Disneyland all day and my feet are killing me! I need a subject for a quick post and this Happy Meal is it. This won't impress adults very much but if any kids are reading this they'll think I'm a demi-god for appearing on a McDonald's box.

The artist doesn't want me to use his name so don't try to pry it out of me!

SHOULD WE STRIVE FOR GOOD TASTE?

Gladys: "You know, I was thinking...don't you guys think good taste sucks? I mean, what is good taste but just the commonly agreed opinion about things? What if the common wisdom is wrong?"

Petunia: " Hmmmm. I don't know, Gladys. You have to anchor your opinions in something outside yourself. If you only have your own reason and emotions to judge things by you'll drift off into craziness and selfish behavior."

Marigold: "I think we're anchored. I mean I wouldn't run around naked on this tree limb if I thought it would fall. "

Violet: "Um, Marigold...I think Petunia meant "anchored" in a philosophical sense."

Marigold: "Oh..."

Sunflower: "Er... can I say something? It seems to me that the Greeks figured this thing out long ago. For them good taste was an aspect of virtue and virtue was something public. Good taste had something to do with making choices that were good for society. So..."
"

Mildred: "Holy Cow! Look! IT'S A MAN!!!!!!

Fred: "Grrrrr! I heard you girls babbling! None of you got it right!! Good taste is something for consumers of art to argue about! For the makers of art there's only the quest for greatness of spirit, for mastery over nature, for something worthy of the miraculous minds we were born with!!!!"

Girls: " (Gasp!) EEEEK! Run for the Hills! Let's book! Eeeeeekkk!!!!!! Eeeeekkk!!!!!!!!!"

EDWIN SMITH, PHOTOGRAPHER

Edwin Smith was an English photographer who did most of the pictures he's famous for in the 1950s. I don't think any of his photos are well-known. He's renowned instead for the consistency of his work. Almost every major picture he took was thought provoking in some way. You won't get a sense of what I'm talking about if you look at the small versions. Be sure to click to enlarge.

Seen large the wrought iron gazebo above is awe inspiring. Imagine a building that large which serves no purpose except to enclose an area and make us aware of the space inside. Our senses are so adjusted that we find space itself beautiful when it's presented to us in the right way. The builder added swirling vine shapes to remind us how profound the simplest things in nature are.


Here's (above) a back room in a country church. The irregular slate floors and white, chalky walls enclose the space perfectly. The window admits diffused light into the room. It's a great window because its design elements of mathematical, intellectual purity co-exist with the primitive, textured, irregular walls that surround it. People are like that -- intellectually sophisticated and primitive at the same time. Even the furniture speaks about this dual nature of ours. Without using words or arguments the room forces us to think about who we are and how we fit into the world.
Here (above) are Roman-type sculptures and buildings in a garden setting. It's a Utopian vision of high human ideals co-existing with nature. A book trying to make the same point would risk skepticism by the reader. Art makes the point wordlessly and it sticks. Visual art is like music. It bypasses intellectual barriers and carries its argument directly to the viewer's mind. Artists have it in their power to change the world every bit as much as novelists and philosophers.