9 h 2 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if beauty and pleasure tell us less about art than the feeling it passes from person to person?
At an opera rehearsal, Leo Tolstoy watches workers, singers and directors toil. The effort troubles him: what makes art worth its cost? In What Is Art?, he tests European theories of beauty, rejects pleasure as a sufficient answer, and asks what artistic expression actually does between people.
His answer is direct: art passes feeling from one person to another. From there, Tolstoy builds a demanding argument about sincerity, imitation and who art serves. He judges Wagner, Beethoven, French poets and his own novels, while bringing Christian moral standards to bear on the value of the feelings art shares.
What you’ll discover
- The cost behind art Begin with the labor of an opera rehearsal and the question it raises about art's purpose.
- Feeling as the test Explore what Tolstoy means by infection, and why shared emotion matters more to him than beauty.
- Sincerity against imitation Follow his distinction between clear, individual expression and work that merely looks like art.
- Famous names under scrutiny Meet a critic willing to challenge celebrated artists and apply harsh standards to his own novels.
- Art beyond the few Consider his insistence that art belongs to everyone, not only to a refined circle.
Who will love it
For readers who love a strong argument they can push against, and anyone who has wondered why art matters or who gets to decide.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Art costs a great deal, so ask why
- Beauty cannot be the test of art
- Pleasure is also a poor definition
- Art passes feeling from one person to another
- Good art is individual, clear and sincere
- The best art serves the religious sense of its age
- Counterfeit art imitates the real thing
- Art split into the few and the many
- The book has been fiercely challenged and still lasts
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- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Che cos'è l'arte?
by Lev Tolstoj· 1897
An opera rehearsal leads Tolstoy to ask what art costs, whom it serves, and whether it brings people together.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 9
Art costs a great deal, so ask why
Tolstoy opens with a visit to a rehearsal, where he sees workers, singers and directors toiling over a new opera. The scene looks strange to him. Grown men are shouting at one another over small details, while stagehands labor in dust and bad air. He asks what all of this is for, and whether the answer is good enough to justify the price.
He widens the picture. Theatres, orchestras, painting schools, publishers and critics all take huge sums from society. Many of those who pay are poor peasants and workers who never see the results. Tolstoy argues that something this costly needs a clear purpose. If we cannot say what art is, we cannot say whether the sacrifice is fair.
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What is What Is Art by Tolstoy about?
It is an essay that asks what art is and why it matters. Tolstoy rejects beauty and pleasure as definitions, argues that art passes feeling between people, and judges works by sincerity and by whether they unite or divide.
What is Tolstoy's definition of art?
Tolstoy says art is a human activity in which one person, by outward signs, passes on feelings they have lived through, so that others are infected by them and feel the same. Art is a kind of communication.
When did Tolstoy write What Is Art?
He published it in 1897, after years of work. It comes from his later period, when he judged life by Christian moral ideas, and it was written in Russian and soon translated, notably by Aylmer Maude.
The author
Leo Tolstoy
1828–1910 · Russian novelist and moral philosopher
Leo Tolstoy was a Russian author born in 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana, where he lived for much of his life. He wrote novels, stories, and essays. War and Peace appeared in 1865–1869 and Anna Karenina in 1875–1877. He died in 1910 at Astapovo, Russia.
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