What Is Art? by graf Leo Tolstoy

"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. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

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Author Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910
Translator Maude, Aylmer, 1858-1938
Title What Is Art?
Note Wikipedia page about this book: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Art%3F
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 -- Philosophy
Subject Arts and morals
Category Text
EBook-No. 64908
Release Date
Most Recently Updated Oct 18, 2024
Copyright Status Public domain in the USA.
Downloads 4055 downloads in the last 30 days.
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