What is art? / Leo Tolstoy ; translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
Language: English Original language: Russian Series: Penguin classics: Publisher: London ; New York : Penguin Books, 1995Description: [xxvi], 201 p. ; 20 cm001: 011536301ISBN: 0140446427 (pbk.); 9780140446425 (pbk.)Uniform titles: Chto takoe iskusstvo. English Subject(s): Arts -- Philosophy | Arts and morals | Visual artsDDC classification: 700/.1 | 709 LOC classification: BH39 | .T62413 1995N70 | .T722 1995Summary: During the decades of his world fame as sage and preacher as well as author of War and Peace and Anna Karenin, Tolstoy wrote prolifically in a series of essays and polemics on issues of morality, social justice and religion. These culminated in What is Art?, published in 1898. Although Tolstoy perceived the question of art to be a religious one, he considered and rejected the idea that art reveals and reinvents through beauty. The works of Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Baudelaire and even his own novels are condemned in the course of Tolstoy's impassioned and iconoclastic redefinition of art as a force for good, for the progress and improvement of mankind. In his illuminating preface Richard Pevear considers What is Art? in relation to the problems of faith and doubt, and the spiritual anguish and fear of death which preoccupied Tolstoy in the last decades of his life.| Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | MAIN LIBRARY Book | 701 TOL (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 112161 |
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Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
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 criticizes 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.
Includes bibliographical references (p. xxv-[xxvi]).
During the decades of his world fame as sage and preacher as well as author of War and Peace and Anna Karenin, Tolstoy wrote prolifically in a series of essays and polemics on issues of morality, social justice and religion. These culminated in What is Art?, published in 1898. Although Tolstoy perceived the question of art to be a religious one, he considered and rejected the idea that art reveals and reinvents through beauty. The works of Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Baudelaire and even his own novels are condemned in the course of Tolstoy's impassioned and iconoclastic redefinition of art as a force for good, for the progress and improvement of mankind. In his illuminating preface Richard Pevear considers What is Art? in relation to the problems of faith and doubt, and the spiritual anguish and fear of death which preoccupied Tolstoy in the last decades of his life.
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