Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 and passed on in 1910 at the age of eighty-eight. Being born into one of Russia’s great families of aristocracy was a positive for Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy is best known for his writings of War and Peace and Anna Karenina. He also wrote What is Art, which is what will be discussed in this paper. In What is Art Tolstoy argues that art as expression of emotion makes sense, but is really only half of the theory. He explains that expressing emotion is necessary but is not sufficient. In What is Art he highlights the value and importance of his own views in relation to aesthetics. Others would try to say that there are problems, which exercised Tolstoy and explains their fundamental importance in contemporary disputes. Tolstoy believed that the importance of art lies not in its purely aesthetic qualities but in its connection with life, and that it becomes self-indulgent when that connection is lost. This view has often been deformed and its strength overlooked. Tolstoy’s argument, bearing obvious compatibility to the long tradition of moralistic art theory reaching back to Plato, goes like this. (The New Criterion Vol. 17) Scanning the cultural landscape, Tolstoy saw vast human and economic resourc
These bleak perceptions of the art world prompted Tolstoy to ask “ Is it true that art is so important that such sacrifices should be made in it’s name?” Tolstoy detected the influence of an idea that had fundamentally sanctioned these so called sacrifices, but that he believed could never really legitimize them. That idea is aestheticism.
While writing this paper I looked over at a picture that I had taken of my boyfriend one cold winter night. He was wearing a bright orange hat and a blue sweatshirt. The contrast between the two mixed with his cold red nose, his paleish skin and the scruffy beard on his face made this photograph amazing to look at. The light hit it just right and made his eyes look like they wanted to dance and made his nose look so rosey. It also reflected onto the white insignia on the blue sweatshirt, which bounced off of the ivory colored cabinets that were in the background. The focus was only on his face and what he was wearing which made this look like a piece of art. Which led me to believe this is art, because it had perfect lighting, focus, and colors, which made you, feel what the photographer was actually feeling at the moment the picture was taken.
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