Tolstoy And Sennett's Different Philosophies Of Life And Art

The authors mentioned above have different philosophies about life and art. They are fundamentally different, yet there are particular common themes found throughout some of the texts by these authors. Each author needs to believe, first and foremost, in humanity's ability to create art, to experience art, and to react towards art. They need to adopt the mentality that art is intended to be public and thus must be able to provoke a reaction, and the reactions made by the public create assumptions and preconceived notions about the society they live in. Through these fundamental beliefs, the connection between art and the public become more obvious.
There are factors that contribute to the different philosophies each author has. These authors seem to have distinct differences between their views on art and its effect in public life, but in their own ways seem to be intertwined and related. The authors who have radically different thinking from my own tend to assume certain things about humanity, and tend to have a …show more content…
Tolstoy believed that the purpose of art is to bring society together, and to create a society based on the best possible aspects of art - the profound feelings and emotions shared among each other as people, one that creates a sense of belonging with one another. Tolstoy describes good art as one that brings together society, and bad art as one that alienates certain people from society. Sennett believed that the shaping of society was based on individual’s actions and mindsets, and how we as a public could understand one another. Sennett’s ideology reflects how we as a public can interact with one another using rationality, common sense, and empathy. Tolstoy and Sennett share the fundamental idea that society should be formed by uniting people together through common knowledge and understanding for one another, and thus their ideas are connected through that