The author devoted a significant part of his treatise to a detailed proof of the idea "that a work of art can have an advantage over reality only in two or three insignificant respects and necessarily remains far below it in its essential qualities" [104]. In this extensive argument (pp. 38-81) there is much that is naïve (it must not be forgotten that this is a youthful dissertation), some controversial things are asserted unfoundedly, and others, indisputable, are proved with pedantic completeness; but all these shortcomings and excesses should not hide from us the fact that the thought being proved is true, to such an extent that the reader, dissatisfied with the author's lengthy prose, can find a brief but accurate expression of the same view at the opposite pole of our literature in the following poem by Fet:

To whom the crown is: the goddess of beauty,

Or in the mirror her image?

The poet is confused when you are amazed

Rich in his imagination.

Not I, my friend, but God's world is rich:

In a speck of dust he cherishes life and multiplies,

And that yours alone expresses the look,

The poet cannot retell this. [105]

But if so, then what is the significance and task of art? Our author approaches this question from the real side. Refuting the opinion that art creates perfect beauty, which does not exist in reality, he remarks: "There is no perfection in works of art; Whoever is dissatisfied with real beauty can be even less satisfied with the beauty created by art. Thus, it is impossible to agree with the usual explanation of the meaning of art; but there are hints in this explanation which may be called just, if properly interpreted. Man is not satisfied with the beautiful in reality, this beauty is not enough for him – this is the essence and truthfulness of ordinary explanation, which, being falsely understood itself, needs to be explained" [106].

The author's own explanation is unsatisfactory, and I will not dwell on it. Nor will I defend all the 17 theses with which his dissertation ends. Its main content is reduced to two propositions: 1) existing art is only a weak surrogate for reality, and 2) beauty in nature has an objective reality, and these theses will remain. Their assertion in the treatise, constrained by the limits of the author's special philosophical outlook (he was at that time an extreme adherent of Feuerbach), does not resolve, but only poses a real task; but correct formulation is the first step towards resolution. Only on the basis of these truths (the objectivity of beauty and the insufficiency of art), and not through a return to artistic dilettantism, will it be possible to continue fruitful work in the field of aesthetics, which should link artistic creativity with the highest goals of human life.

COMMENTS: THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS POSITIVE AESTHETICS

First published in Vestnik Evropy, 1894, No 1, pp. 294–302.

Solovyov defined the main content of the work in a letter to the famous publicist K. K. Arseniev: "... I am defending a treatise on the relationship between art and reality, which is probably known to you, and this gives some interest to the article" (Letters, 2, 89). Solovyov told the editor of Vestnik Evropy, Stasyulevich, about the circumstances that caused the appearance of the article: "It is very convenient to connect it with recent aesthetic interpretations... moreover, there is something in it that is especially pleasant for our friend A. N. Pypin, namely, a certain intercession for Chernyshevsky against Boborykin, who recently bore the deceased in our Moscow philosophical journal" (Letters, 1, 114). In 1893, a collection of articles by N. G. Chernyshevsky was published, and the name, which had long been banned, reappeared in the pages of the Russian press. The editors of Vestnik Evropy, which included Chernyshevsky's cousin Pypin, understood Solovyov's article as recognition of the merits of the publicist of the sixties in the creation of "true aesthetics" and as a statement against the latest followers of the theory of "art for art's sake." With this approach, which was also adopted by Russian readers, Solovyov's own aesthetic views receded into the background, and their fundamental difference from Chernyshevsky's views was obscured.