Summary of Art and Life, The Psychology of Art (1925), chapter 11, by Vygotsky
陳淑純
Main idea: the significance of applied arts應用藝術的重要性
1) 駁斥感染說(Theory of Contamination)
Tolstoy: art must be evaluated from a moral viewpoint托爾斯泰：對藝術的評價要從「道德」觀點觀察
Compare between Beethoven’s sonata Kreutzer & the singing of the peasant women: the latter expressed such a feeling of joy, while Beethoven’s sonata is neither remarkable nor outstanding. 托爾斯泰以二者帶給人們愉悅興奮的程度作評量
Vygotsky’s viewpoint: to understand art we must add something else to simple infectiousness.
依Vygotsky的概念，藝術可分為擬像的藝術(figurative arts)和抒情(lyrical arts)的藝術。Vygotsky: Longinus’s statement: The purpose of poetry is trepidation (Erschauern), that of prose is expressivity. Tolstoy failed to account for the trepidation which is the purpose of poetry.藝術有兩種能力∕力量∕目的︰一是散文（如小說）的「表達能力」，一是詩帶給人的「畏顫∕驚心動魄」，托爾斯泰忘了後者。→Why did Vygotsky make poetry analogous to Beethoven’s Sonata Kreutzer?「若將音樂視為一種獨立藝術，應該就是單指器樂，它鄙棄另一種藝術的任何幫忙、參雜，而純粹表達它自己特有的、只有在己身內部才能體認的藝術本質。……音樂開啟人們心中一個未知的境界，那是一個與外在感官世界全然不同的境界，身在其中，人們拒絕一切由語言概念決定的情感，為的是要投入那說不出的、不可言傳的層次。現今(1809)“所謂的”器樂作曲家有多少能夠認識到音樂真正的本質？他們用音樂描述確定的情感或事件，以致竟然以雕塑形象的方法處理音樂這種與造型藝術完全對立的藝術！例如迪特斯多夫(Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, 1739-99) 的這類交響曲，以及其他作曲家針對戰爭圖像 所作的音樂，都是可笑的錯誤，人們應該忘記這些作品。」、「貝多芬的器樂也開啟巨大無邊與無可計量的境界。熾熱光芒射入這個境界的深夜，我們意識到一股巨大的黑影上下晃動，將我們愈包愈緊，毀滅我們身上的所有一切，只留下無止境渴望的痛苦；在渴望中，每一股迅速化為雀躍音符上升的興緻轉而下沉、沒入；苦痛吞噬了愛、希望與快樂，卻未將它們毀壞，而欲以所有熱情合奏出的飽滿和弦炸開我們的胸膛，也只有在這般苦痛中，我們的生命能繼續前進，成為心醉神迷的能見靈界者。」(E. T. A. Hoffmann, Rezension von Beethoven’s 5. Symphonie, 1809)
Music incites, excites, and irritates in an indeterminate fashion not connected with any concrete reaction, motion, or action. This is proof that its effect is cathartic, that is, it clears our psyche, reveals and calls to life tremendous energies which were previously inhibited and restrained.音樂會激發或刺激我們，但以一種不確定的方式，不與任何具體的反應、動作或行動相關聯，這證明音樂以舒解∕疏解的方式發生作用，它淨化我們的心理，揭示並喚起先前被壓制、被束縛的巨大的力量。
Vygotsky: Music by itself is isolated from our everyday behavior; it does not drive us to do anything, it only creates a vague and enormous desire for some deeds or actions; it opens the way for the emergence of powerful, hidden forces within us.音樂與日常行為有所區隔，它不會驅使我們採取任何行動，但會創造一股不明卻巨大的慾望，使我們想要進行某些行為或行動，它為我們深藏的強大力量開闢管道。
Vygotsky: Ovsianiko-Kulikovskii: Military lyrics and music ‘lift the spirit’ of the army and ‘inspire’ feats of valor and heroic deeds, but neither of them leads directly to bellicose emotions or belligerent affects. On the contrary, they seem to moderate bellicose ardor, calm an excited nervous system, and chase away fear.軍事抒情詩與軍樂能振奮士氣，但並不能「直接引發」戰鬥情緒，相反地，它可以緩和緊張的神經系統、消除恐懼。它提供戰鬥情緒表達的管道，卻不能製造戰鬥情緒。
No doubt that lyrical emotion (e. g. erotic poetry) has a soothing effect on all other emotions and effects to the point that at times it paralyzes them.以情色詩為例，抒情情緒對所有其他情緒或激情會起緩和作用，甚至會痲痺它。Truly lyrical erotic poetry is far less suggestive than works of the visual arts.真正抒情的情色詩，其誘惑力不及視覺藝術
Vygotsky: Art would have a dull and ungrateful task if its only purpose were to infect one or many persons with feelings.
2) Significance of Art in Life
The significance of art ought to be more qualitative than quantitative.藝術之質勝於量，感染說只及於量的層面
The miracle of art reminds us the transformation of water into wine. Art’s true nature is that of transubstantiation, something that transcends ordinary feelings. 藝術真正的本質在於「值變」—將普通情感超越
Vygotsky quoted from a great thinker: art relates to life as wine related to the grape, i. e. art takes its material from life, but gives in return something which its material did not contain.藝術與人生的關係就如葡萄酒與葡萄的關係，藝術取材於人生，其產出卻超越材料本身。
3) Social Significance of Art
An emotion is individual and only by means of work of art does it become social or generalized.個別情感透過藝術作品會變成社會情感，或說此情感被概約。
Social ≠ collectiv
Art is an expanded “social feeling”, but it remains not clear, why art should be viewed as a creative act nor how it differs from an ordinary yell or an orator’s speech.此說法還是沒有解釋清楚，為何藝術應被視為創作活動，或者藝術為何與普通的喊叫或演說者的演說有何不同。見下文。
4) Art and life
Plekhanov: the relationship between art and life is extremely complex.
Plekhanov: art is sometimes not a direct expression of life, but an expression of its antithesis.藝術非直接表達人生，而是反其道而行：表達人生的對立面（e.g.風景畫v.s.城市生活）
Lunacharskii: art is a concentration of life.藝術是生活的濃縮
Vygotsky: art proceeds from certain live feelings and works upon those feelings. This process is a catharsis—the transformation of these feelings into opposite ones and their subsequent resolution.藝術來自特定的生命情感，藝術改造這些情感，此過程為「淨化」，也就是將這些情感變為反向的情感以及這些情感的舒解∕疏解。
Biological significance of art
Veselovskii: Ancient singing and playing were born from a complex need for catharsis. A chorus sung during hard and exhausting work regulates muscular effort by its rhythm. Aimless play responds to the subconscious requirement of training and regulation of physical or intellectual effort.繁重的勞動當中，人們藉合唱中的節奏協調肌肉活動。無目的的遊戲回應潛意識裡鍛鍊體力與腦力的需要。
Bücher: Music and poetry have a common origin in heavy physical labor. Their object was to relax cathartically the tremendous stress created by labor.詩歌與音樂溯源於一，也就是體力的勞動，目的在於以「淨化」的方式舒解勞動壓力。
Song at first organized collective labor, then gave relief and relaxation to painful and tormenting strain.歌唱先是組織集體勞動，其次是讓痛苦緊張得以舒解。
Nitzsche (Fröhliche Wissenschaft): rhythm involves inducement and incentive (Zwang): “It arouses an irresistible desire to imitate, and not only our legs but our very soul follow the beat.” The possibility of releasing into art powerful passions which cannot find expression in normal, everyday life is the biological basis of art.尼采︰「節奏內含引誘∕強制，它挑起不可克服的模仿興緻，不僅腳步，連心靈都跟著起舞。」在日常生活中發洩不出來的激情在藝術中可得到消耗，這種可能性就是藝術生物學的基礎。
The purpose of our behavior is to keep our organism in balance with its surroundings. 行為的目的不外乎使我們的機體與外在環境保持平衡。The more subtle and complex the interaction between organism and environment, the more devious and intricate the balancing process.機體與環境的相互作用越複雜、越細微，均衡的過程就越曲折。
This balancing process cannot continue smoothly toward an equilibrium (balance). There will always be a certain imbalance in favor of the environment or the organism. A need arises from time to time to discharge the unused energy and give it free rein in order to reestablish our balance with the rest of the world. Orshanskii: feelings “are the pluses and minuses of our equilibrium.” 均衡的過程非永遠和諧，不和諧∕不平衡必存在。沒有使用的能量必須找到自由的出路釋放出來，以便與外在世界維持平衡。Orshanskii說：感情就是「平衡的加加減減」。
Art is a delayed reaction, because there is always a fairly long period of time between its effect and its execution.藝術是一種延遲的藝術，因為藝術的作用與實現之間需要較長時間。Art performs with our bodies and through our bodies.藝術透過身體並以我們的身體執行。例如Rutz研究藝術感知對身體肌肉組織的某些特定的依賴關係。
Nervous system
Sherrington’s principle (nervous system), in our organism the nervous receptor fields exceed many times the executing effector neurons.機體的神經感受區超過它的效應執行神經元好多倍。It is obvious that the unrealized part of life, which has not gone through the narrow opening of our behavior, must somehow utilized and lived.生命中種種沒有得以實現的欲望與刺激必須被消耗。Apparently art is a psychological means for striking a balance with the environment at critical points of our behavior.藝術就是使我們的行為在關鍵時刻與我們的環境取得平衡的心理途徑。
Von Lange: There is a sorry resemblance between contemporary civilized man and domestic animals: limitation and monotony.
Vygotsky反對「藝術＝遊戲」說。強調藝術之實用面者包括Grant-Allen, Spencer, Schiller。Vygotsky︰不能將藝術降低為只有是「鍛鍊器官的生物學功能」(biological function of exercising certain organs)，藝術是一種創作活動，藝術需要「舒解∕疏解」(catharsis)，只有在生動和鮮明的情感(live and vivid feeling)中才會發生。單靠情感，即便真誠，不能產生藝術，單靠技巧也永遠產生不了抒情詩和交響樂。
To generate a lyric poem or a symphony we require the creative act of overcoming the feeling, resolving it, conquering it. Only when this act has been performed – then and only then is art born. This is why the perception of art requires creativity: it is not enough to experience sincerely the feeling, or feelings, of the author; it is not enough to understand the structure of the work of art; one must also creatively overcome one’s own feelings, and find one’s own catharsis; only then will the effect of art be complete.欲創造抒情詩和交響樂，必須有克服、緩解和戰勝情感的創作活動，只有出現這樣的創作活動，藝術才會誕生。因此，對藝術的感知需要創造；單是真誠地體驗作者的情感還不夠，單了解藝術作品的結構也不夠，還必須創造性地克服自己的情感，尋找個人的舒解∕疏解，只有這樣藝術的作用才充份顯現。
The economy of our feelings藝術對情感有節約功能
Ovsianiko-Kulikovskii：”The harmonic rhythm of lyrics creates emotions which differ from the majority of other emotions in that such ‘lyric emotions’ save our psychic energies by putting our ‘psychic household’ into harmonic order.”抒情詩和諧的韻律所產生的情緒不同於其他情緒，原因在於這些「抒情情緒」建立一套「心理家計」和諧的秩序，節約我們的心理能量。藝術不會讓人大哭大笑。
This is not to say art is an attempt to avoid the output of psychic energies; on the contrary, art is an explosive and sudden expenditure of strength, of forces, a discharge of energy.藝術爆炸式地消耗能量
Hennequin: the difference between aesthetic and real emotion — aesthetic emotion does not immediately express itself in action. If repeated over and over again, these emotions can become the basis for an individual’s behavior.審美情緒不會立即表現，但有淺移默化的作用。
5) Art Criticism
The real purpose and task of art criticism is not to interpret or explain a work of art, nor is its purpose to prepare the spectator or reader for the perception of a work of art. One half of the task of criticism is aesthetic; the other half is pedagogical and public.藝術批評的目的︰一是美學的，一是教育的與公眾的。
The criticism which consciously and intentionally puts art into prose establishes its social root, and determines the social connection that exists between art and the general aspects of life. It gathers our conscious forces counteract or, conversely, to cooperate with those impulses which have been generated by a work of art. 藝術批評的第二目的（教育的與公眾的）明顯將將藝術散文化，以建立其社會根基，並決定藝術與一般生活之間的社會關聯。它引導我們自覺地以某種方式抵制或助長藝術所產生的衝動。
The other half of criticism consists in conserving the effect of art as art, and preventing the read spectator from wasting the forces aroused by art by substituting for its powerful impulses dull, commonplace, rational-moral precepts.藝術批評的第一目的（美學的）則是維護藝術作為藝術的作用，防止讀∕觀者浪費掉藝術所喚起的力量，不讓讀∕觀者以道德訓戒替代強有力的藝術衝動。
To explain art is indispensable, our behavior is organized according to the principle of unity, which is accomplished mainly by means of our consciousness in which any emotion seeking an outlet must be represented.解釋藝術之所以必要，是因為我們的行為乃依據一個統一原則，其主要透過我們的意識實現，而意識裡任何尋找出口的情緒必須再現出來。
例︰愛倫波（Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1949）在〈創作的哲學〉（Philosophy of composition）一文中說，創作（指的是〈烏鴉〉（The Raven）這一首長詩）並非偶發，也沒憑直覺，作品一步步走向完成，其實是一連串精確刻板的「數學」問題。“It is my design to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is referable either to accident or intuition- that the work proceeded step by step, to its completion, with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem.”
見http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/poe/composition.html
The search for the sociological equivalent of a work of art is only the first half of the task of criticism (Plekhanov). In searching for the social equivalent of a given literary phenomenon, this type of criticism betrays the own nature of art if it does not understand that we confine ourselves to finding this equivalent.尋找藝術的社會等值只及批評任務的前半(Plekhanov)，這類力求文學現象的社會等值的批評背反了藝術的真正本質，不能了解我們劃地自限只為尋求社會等值。
6) Art and Teaching
What is teachable? Literature? It is possible to teach art outside the sociological context and only on the basis of individual tastes?藝術教學可以排除任何社會關聯，只考慮個人藝術品味嗎？
A school that eliminates lessons in literature is bound to be a bad school.
Poetry under a system of explanatory reading is eliminated from the curriculum. According to Gershenzon, poetry is a heavenly guest and it must be made to resume the role it played in ancient times.以解釋的方式閱讀詩就等於將詩排除在課程之外。根據Gershenzon，詩歌是來自天上的貴客（地上的仙子），必須恢復它在古代的地位。
According to Gershenzon, poetry can not be studied scientifically.不能以科學方法研讀詩歌。
The act of artistic creation cannot be taught. A creative act cannot be recreated by means of purely conscious operations.藝術創作活動無法教，藝術創作活動不能透過純粹處理意識的方式對待。
The most important elements in art are subconscious or creative.藝術最重要的元素在潛意識裡，或說是創意的
What can be taught? An act of art includes all preceding acts of rational cognizance, understanding, recognition, association, and so forth. We can organize the conscious processes in such a way that they generate subconscious processes. 那一部份可以被教？任何藝術活動都以理性認知、理解、識辨與聯想等為前置作業，我們可以用特定方式組織有意識的過程，以便透過有意識的過程引起潛意識的過程。
Thought and artistic images are creative acts.→此說法不明確，不能因此而混淆創作的生物因素與心理過程。
Difference between children and adults:
“The hermit asked me how many strawberries grow at the bottom of the ocean?” Answer: “As many as there are red herrings in the forest.”
7) What is art?
Art is the supreme center of biological and social individual processes in society, that it is a method for finding an equilibrium between man and his world, in the most critical and important stages of his life.藝術是個體在社會中生物過程與社會過程最重要的焦點，藝術是人生最關鍵時刻找尋到個體與外在世界平衡的方法之一。
Ideas to be confronted:
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, davon muß man singen. (Whatever you can not talk about, you have to sing it.)→What is speakable?
Creation
Sense of hearing & sense of seeing
Instinct
Synaesthesis
Longinus spoke of “trepidation”(Longinus, 1st Cent.: On the sublime. Oxonii (Oxford) : E. Typographeo Clarendoniano, 1968.)
Longinus: real name unknown, a Greek teacher of rhetoric or a literary critic who may have lived in the first or third century AD. Longinus is known only for his treatise On the Sublime.
“Sublime” in On the Sublime: above the ordinary / The effects of the Sublime are: loss of rationality, an alienation leading to identification with the creative process of the artist and a deep emotion mixed to pleasure and exaltation.「崇高」的效應在於遠離理性，
The Sublime leads the listeners not to persuasion, but to ecstasy: for what is wonderful goes always together with a sense of dismay, and prevails over what is only convincing or delightful, since persuasion, as a rule, is within everyone’s grasp, while the Sublime, giving to the speech an invincible power and [an invincible] strength, rises above every listener.
The Sublime, moreover, cannot identify itself only to what is simply beautiful, but also to what is so upsetting to cause “bewilderment” (ΕΚΠΛΗΞΙΣ), “surprise” (ΤΟ ΘΑΥΜΑΣΤΟΝ) and even “fear” (ΦΟΒΟΣ).
Names quoted by Vygotsky:
Tolstoy
Yevlakhov
V.G. Valter
Longinus
Petrazhitskii
Ovsianiko-Kulikovskii
Plekhanov
Belinskii
Taine
Lunacharskii
Veselovskii, Three Chapters of Historic Poetics
Bücher’s studies on the origins of art
Quintilian
Nitzsche
Orshanskii
Sherrington
von Lange
Grant-Allen
Spencer
Schiller
Guyau
Napoleon
Corneille
Victor Hugo
Hennequin
Andrei Bely
Rutz
Sievers
Gershenzon
Molozhavy
Potebnia
Bühler
Friche
