# What Is Art? — Character guide

> Key figures in What Is Art? by Leo Tolstoy.

- [Leo Tolstoy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/tolstoy.md): Tolstoy writes as both insider and prosecutor: a novelist of genius who now insists that most celebrated art is counterfeit, and that only sincere feeling, accessible to the uneducated, counts. His argument draws on his 
- [Richard Wagner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/wagner.md): Wagner is the living test case for Tolstoy's charge that modern art has lost the capacity to transmit real feeling, substituting technical ambition and borrowed emotion. Tolstoy grants Wagner's fame and the devotion of h
- [Siegfried](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/siegfried.md): Hero of Wagner's Ring cycle, discussed as a mythical figure.
- [Ludwig van Beethoven](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/beethoven.md): Composer cited as an example of true art by Tolstoy.
- [Charles Baudelaire](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/baudelaire.md): French poet criticized for decadent and obscure art.
- [Plato](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/plato.md): Ancient philosopher whose views on art are discussed.
- [Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/hegel.md): German philosopher whose aesthetic theories are critiqued.
- [Immanuel Kant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/kant.md): Philosopher whose concept of disinterested pleasure is examined.
- [M. Schasler](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/schasler.md): German aesthetician referenced in the discussion of art theory.
- [Alexander Pushkin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/pushkin.md): Russian poet mentioned as an example of national art.
- [Paul Verlaine](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/verlaine.md): French poet associated with Symbolist movement.
- [Ivan Goncharov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/gontchareff.md): Russian novelist cited in passing.
- [Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/schelling.md): German philosopher of Romanticism and aesthetics.
- [Friedrich Schiller](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/schiller.md): German poet and philosopher on aesthetic education.
- [William Shakespeare](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/shakespeare.md): Playwright cited as universal artist by Tolstoy.
- [Johann Gottlieb Fichte](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/fichte.md): German idealist philosopher mentioned in aesthetic debates.
- [Arthur Schopenhauer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/schopenhauer.md): Philosopher whose pessimism and art theory are discussed.
- [Aristotle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/aristotle.md): Ancient Greek philosopher on mimesis and catharsis.
- [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/goethe.md): German writer and poet referenced in art discussions.
- [Herbert Spencer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/spencer.md): English philosopher whose evolutionary aesthetics are noted.
- [Socrates](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/socrates.md): Greek philosopher whose dialogues on art are invoked.
- [Voltaire](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/voltaire.md): French Enlightenment writer cited in aesthetic debates.
- [Frédéric Chopin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/chopin.md): Polish composer referenced in discussion of music.
- [Francis of Assisi](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/francis_of_assisi.md): Saint cited as example of religious feeling in art.
- [Jesus Christ](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/christ.md): Central figure of Christian art and Tolstoy's moral ideal.
- [Wotan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/wotan.md): God in Wagner's Ring cycle, discussed as mythological figure.
- [Siegmund](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/siegmund.md): Hero in Wagner's Die Walküre, part of the Ring cycle.
- [Mime](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/mime.md): Dwarf in Wagner's Ring, a character from the operas.
- [Alberich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/alberich.md): Nibelung dwarf in Wagner's Ring, central to the plot.
- [Hagen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/hagen.md): Villain in Wagner's Götterdämmerung, from the Ring cycle.
- [Gunther](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/gunther.md): King in Wagner's Ring, a character from the operas.
- [Sieglinda](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/sieglinda.md): Heroine in Wagner's Die Walküre, from the Ring cycle.
- [Hunding](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/hunding.md): Character in Wagner's Die Walküre, Sieglinda's husband.
- [Stéphane Mallarmé](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/mallarme.md): French Symbolist poet criticized for obscurity.
- [Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/what_is_art_se/characters/baumgarten.md): German philosopher who coined the term aesthetics.

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