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What is Art?

By Leo Tolstoy
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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
In What is Art?, Leo Tolstoy explores the nature, purpose, and societal value of art. He critiques past theories and establishes his own definition, arguing that true art communicates emotions shared by the artist and the audience, thus fostering unity among people. The work questions the cultural hierarchy of art and champions accessibility.
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This thought-provoking work from a literary giant may appeal to those interested in exploring the meaning and purpose of art. If you're fascinated by discussions on aesthetics and philosophical perspectives on culture, this book offers insightful commentary that challenges conventional views.

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During the decades of his world fame, Tolstoy wrote this series of essays and polemics on issues of morality, social justice and religion. He considered and rejected the idea that art reveals and reinvents through beauty, although he perceived the question of art to be a religious one.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Tolstoy's controversial treatise on the purpose of Art

During his decades of world fame as a novelist, Tolstoy also wrote prolifically in a series of essays and polemics on issues of morality, social justice and religion. These works culminated in What is Art?, published in 1898.

Impassioned and iconoclastic, this powerfully influential work both criticises the elitist nature of art in nineteenth-century Western society and rejects the idea that its sole purpose should be the creation of beauty.

The works of Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Baudelaire, and Wagner are all vigorously condemned, as Tolstoy explores what he believes to be the spiritual role of the artist—arguing that true art must work with religion and science as a force for the advancement of mankind.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780140446425

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 31 August 1995

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Classics

Contributors:

  • Translated by Richard Pevear
  • Translated by Larissa Volokhonsky
  • Preface by Richard Pevear
  • Translated by Richard Pevear
  • Translated by Larissa Volokhonsky
  • Translated by Richard Pevear
  • Translated by Larissa Volokhonsky

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 14.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 197.0mm

Weight: 180g

Pages: 240

Collections

Arts & Culture Biography & Memoir Leo Tolstoy Non-Fiction Penguin Books Penguin Classics

About the Author

Leo Tolstoy was born in central Russia in 1828. He studied Oriental languages and law (although failed to earn a degree in the latter) at the University of Kazan, and after a dissolute youth eventually joined an artillery regiment in the Caucasus in 1851. He took part in the Crimean War, and the Sebastopol Sketches that emerged from it established his reputation. After living for some time in St Petersburg and abroad, he married Sophie Behrs in 1862 and they had thirteen children. The happiness this brought him gave him the creative impulse for his two greatest novels, War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). Later in life his views became increasingly radical as he gave up his possessions to live a simple peasant life. After a quarrel with his wife he fled home secretly one night to seek refuge in a monastery. He became ill during this dramatic flight and died at the small railway station of Astapovo in 1910.

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