"What Is Art?" by graf Leo Tolstoy is a philosophical work completed in 1897. Tolstoy questions the very nature of art, rejecting beauty-based definitions to propose that art is anything communicating emotion—from jokes to church services. Yet his Christian moralism leads him to dismiss celebrated masters like Beethoven, Wagner, and Shakespeare, along with most of his own writings. He condemns the obscurity and artificiality of contemporary art, insisting that true art must be accessible to all and serve humanity's moral evolution by evoking brotherhood and love. ... Read more
About this eBook
| Author | Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910 |
|---|---|
| Translator | Maude, Aylmer, 1858-1938 |
| Title | What Is Art? |
| Note | Translation of: Что такое искусство? (Chto takoe iskusstvo?) |
| Credits | Tim Lindell, David King, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Archives.) |
| Reading Level | Reading ease score: 51.7 (10th to 12th grade). Somewhat difficult to read. |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | BH: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Aesthetics |
| Subject | Arts and morals |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 64908 |
| ISBN (HTML) | 979-8-238-64908-5 |
| Release Date | Mar 23, 2021 |
| Last Update | Oct 18, 2024 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 4400 downloads in the last 30 days. |
Original page: gutenberg.org/ebooks/64908