What Is Art?

by Leo Tolstoy

Overview

In "What Is Art?", Leo Tolstoy delves into the philosophy of art, challenging the conventions of his day. Through incisive argumentation, Tolstoy proposes that true art transcends mere aesthetic pleasure, serving instead as a medium for communicating the deepest human emotions and experiences universally. He criticizes art that caters only to society's elite, advocating for art that is accessible, truthful, and capable of fostering spiritual and moral growth among all people.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781910558171
Publisher:	Interactive Media
Publication date:	09/15/2014
Series:	Ideas for Life
Sold by:	StreetLib SRL
Format:	eBook
File size:	722 KB

About the Author

Count Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, in Yasnaya Polyana, Russia. Orphaned at nine, he was brought up by an elderly aunt and educated by French tutors until he matriculated at Kazan University in 1844. In 1847, he gave up his studies and, after several aimless years, volunteered for military duty in the army, serving as a junior officer in the Crimean War before retiring in 1857. In 1862, Tolstoy married Sophie Behrs, a marriage that was to become, for him, bitterly unhappy. His diary, started in 1847, was used for self-study and self-criticism; it served as the source from which he drew much of the material that appeared not only in his great novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), but also in his shorter works. Seeking religious justification for his life, Tolstoy evolved a new Christianity based upon his own interpretation of the Gospels. Yasnaya Polyana became a mecca for his many converts At the age of eighty-two, while away from home, the writer suffered a break down in his health in Astapovo, Riazan, and he died there on November 20, 1910.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have produced acclaimed translations of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Bulgakov. Their translation of The Brothers Karamazov won the 1991 PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize. They are married and live in Paris, France.

Date of Birth:

September 9, 1828

Date of Death:

November 20, 1910

Place of Birth:

Tula Province, Russia

Place of Death:

Astapovo, Russia

Education:

Privately educated by French and German tutors; attended the University of Kazan, 1844-47

Table of Contents

What Is Art? - Leo Tolstoy Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky with a Preface by Richard Pevear

Preface
Bibliographical Note
A Note on the Text

WHAT IS ART? Appendix I
Appendix II
Notes

Editorial Reviews

The effectiveness of What Is Art? lies not so much in its positive assertions as in its rejection of much that was taken for granted in the aesthetic theories of the time.”

literary critic and former Warton Professor of Eng John Bayley

What Is Art? itself is a work of science, though many passages, and even some whole chapters, appeal to us as works of art and we feel the contagion of the author’s hope, his anxiety to serve the cause of truth and love, his indignation (sometimes rather sharply expressed) with whatever blocks the path of advance, and his contempt for much that the ‘cultured crowd,’ in our erudite, perverted society, have persuaded themselves, and would fain persuade others, is the highest art.”

translator Aylmer Maude

Eccentric and lucid, cranky and brilliant, funny and fierce.”

New Criterion

Infuriating, irresistible, aesthetically unaesthetic.”

New Essay on Tolstoy E. Lampert