Tolstoy interprets art as a way to indirectly emotionally connect with others who view the piece of art, and the creator himself. As art typically expresses a feeling, a memory, or a moment in time it can be interpreted that the purpose is indeed to connect others with those truths of the creator. The “infectiousness” in a sense is how much the art work can penetrate into the emotions of the viewer. Tolstoy would essentially ask questions such as “Does the viewer feel connected to that work? Does it evoke emotion or trigger someone’s own memories?” The idea that art is infectious is that one piece of art can universally replicate the same feeling to a plethora of subjects.
This method of viewing art is one that Tolstoy strongly agrees with. In fact, he be believes if art doesn’t evoke emotion, there is essentially no point in it. Any art that is used for only pleasure is irrelevant and should be rejected in his eyes. He very simply suggests that if art does not provide his listed criteria, it should be rejected. Which is a bit extreme.
Personally I do not agree with his methodology. Art is intended to be subjective. Someone can create and INCREDIBLY sad/devastating piece of art that may be highly relatable for one group of individuals, yet completely not understandable to the next. Not all art can reach into the depths of someone’s life, history, or past experiences and pull out strong emotion. Yet that should not rule out someones hard work/creativity as not meeting standards to be qualified as art.
However, I do believe that art made with the intention to evoke emotion is incredibly important. To that point we may be able to use Tolstoy’s rules to an extent. We need art like that to purge our emotions because for some people, that is the only way they know how. Tolstoy’s criteria for critiquing art could be used to evaluate only intentionally emotional pieces. Be it any sort of emotion.
We need to remember that art made with the intention of fun, humor, and pleasure are equally if not more valuable. This includes movies, music, theatre, and physical art as well. What on earth would our world be if we eliminated all of those categories of art that only appeals to deep emotion.
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Philosophy Grind 
Plato, Aristotle, and Tolstoy all seem pretty extreme with their takes on art. The art in question must fit their criteria or it isn’t art to them. You identified that in Tolstoy, which I understand completely. Happy and humorous art is just as valuable as thought-provoking art.
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I agree with your statement, And I also believe Tolstoy main belief was to have the artist feel a connection with their art and the viewer to be pulled in the art and also feel emotion. The infectiousness is only the main connection the person has toward the artist art and believes this is perfect art and can be considered real art.
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good job
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I agree with your views that art does express emotions as well as keeping Tolstoy in the forefront of your explanation. Many people who look at art don’t feel it emotionally connects to them which is where Tolstoy was explaining how we decipher good art from the poor. Overall this blog did affect me because I enjoy art in all forms so to see the original ideology explained by someone from my generation makes me feel as if with time we’ve become more emotional. We love art
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