First Musing on Tolstoy

Is it necessarily important that a piece of art be clear to the reader or viewer? What if the artist is mad and cannot think clearly? Mad people have created beautiful work that is still understood though it is sometimes unclear. Is clearness in art truly important?

I do not think art necessarily needs to be clear in the eyes of a viewer because when I was younger and did not fully understand Shakespeare's words to the full extent that I do now (or maybe do not), I still felt emotion from  the lovers in A Midsummer Night's Dream. And sometimes the writers of magic realism tend to write rather realistically but, at the same time, enigmatically and pensively. Clearness is necessary so that the reader or viewer can understand the most basic premise of a piece of art but art can also be very complicated. Tolstoy would be contradicted himself if he would not agree with this himself because War and Peace is a very confusing, long conflict with about fifty characters.

Some writers have been mad (some people would argue the best ones are) but have produced great work that can be understood by all. The Sufi poet Rumi, for example, was considered to be mad because he simple just cited verses of poetry out and sometimes did and does sound mad in his poetry. Vincent van Gogh was considered mad during his time period and was, in fact, extremely depressed and sorrowful but his art is expressed very clearly. Edgar Allan Poe had many psychological problems and his work is very precise, some of his stories almost have a formula like some equation.

Clearness is important but a definition and clear understanding of what is clear in art is more important.