What Is Art? · Question
How does What Is Art? develop the theme of Critique of Aesthetics and Art Criticism?
Answer
What Is Art? by Leo Tolstoy develops Critique of Aesthetics and Art Criticism across the chapters the companion marks for this theme.
The book condemns formal aesthetic theories and professional art critics for justifying whatever art pleases the elite, thereby perverting taste and promoting counterfeit works over genuine art.
Tolstoy directly challenges the foundations of aesthetic philosophy, arguing that existing definitions are subjective and fail to capture the essence of art.
Tolstoy highlights the self-contradictory nature of art criticism, where different schools deny each other's legitimacy, leaving no clear definition of art.
Tolstoy deconstructs the vague and contradictory definitions of beauty offered by philosophers over 150 years.
Evidence in the book
- What Is Art?
Tolstoy directly challenges the foundations of aesthetic philosophy, arguing that existing definitions are subjective and fail to capture the essence of art.
- I
Tolstoy highlights the self-contradictory nature of art criticism, where different schools deny each other's legitimacy, leaving no clear definition of art.
- Chapter II
Tolstoy deconstructs the vague and contradictory definitions of beauty offered by philosophers over 150 years.
- III
Tolstoy systematically critiques the major aesthetic theories, finding them contradictory and obscure.
- IV
Tolstoy systematically dismantles existing aesthetic theories that define art by beauty or pleasure, arguing they are circular and self-serving.
- VII
Tolstoy systematically dismantles the invented science of aesthetics, arguing it has no foundation in ancient thought and merely justifies the pleasure-seeking art of the elite.
- XII
Critics are described as incapable of being infected by art, and their praise of invented works perverts taste.
- III
The chapter implicitly criticizes the aesthetic standards that would celebrate such a work, suggesting that critics and audiences have been misled.
