Che cosa è l'arte?

by Leo Tolstoy

"Che cosa è l'arte?" by graf Leo Tolstoy is a philosophical treatise completed in 1897. In this provocative work, Tolstoy challenges conventional definitions of art, dismissing beauty as a standard and instead proposing that art is anything that communicates emotion. He controversially rejects accepted masters like Beethoven, Shakespeare, and Wagner, applying his radical Christian ethics to evaluate artworks. Tolstoy argues that true art should be accessible to all, unite humanity through shared feelings, and serve a moral purpose in human development.