Leo Tolstoy published What Is Art? in 1897. In this book, Tolstoy challenges the leading aesthetic theories of his time. Instead of beauty or pleasure, he defines art as the transmission of feeling from one person to another. This article follows the main arguments of Tolstoy’s What Is Art step by step: his critique of beauty, his theory of emotional contagion, the three conditions of genuine art, and the role of religious consciousness.
1. Tolstoy, What Is Art and the Critique of Beauty and Pleasure (Chapters I–IV)
Lev N. Tolstoy fundamentally rejects a long-standing habit of the Western philosophical tradition: defining art in terms of “beauty” (beau / schön / beautiful) or “pleasure.” This habit dates back to Alexander Baumgarten’s theoretical work in 1750. According to Tolstoy, more than 150 years of aesthetic theory had failed to establish an objective consensus on the meaning of beauty. Ultimately, all definitions of beauty rested on what an individual found pleasing—that is, on subjective pleasure.
Tolstoy illustrates the shallowness of treating pleasure as the purpose of art through an analogy with nutrition:
“For example, when discussing nutrition, it would never occur to anyone to determine the importance of food by the pleasure we experience while eating it. Everyone agrees that the satisfaction of our tastes can never serve as the criterion for determining the value of food… People came to understand that the purpose of eating and drinking is nourishment only when they recognized that pleasure is not the ultimate aim of these activities. The same is true of art.” (Chapter IV)
For Tolstoy, placing beauty at the foundation of art is a trap devised by the privileged classes to justify their exclusive lifestyles and selfish pleasures.
2. The True Definition of Art According to Tolstoy: Emotional Communication and Contagion (Chapter V)
Having rejected beauty and pleasure as the defining principles of art, Tolstoy presents art as a necessary condition of human life and a fundamental means of communication between people. While words enable human beings to communicate thoughts and experiences, art serves to transmit emotions.
Tolstoy offers the following definition of artistic activity:
“To evoke within oneself a feeling one has once experienced and, having evoked it, to transmit that feeling to others through images expressed in movement, lines, colors, sounds, or words, so that others may experience the same feeling—that is what art consists of. Art is a human activity in which one person consciously conveys a feeling experienced by that person to others through certain external signs, and those others are affected by the same feeling.” (Chapter V)
This transmission depends on the human capacity for emotional contagion. Tolstoy illustrates the process through his famous example of the wolf:
“A child who has seen a wolf and describes how frightened he was provides an example. If, while describing the forest in detail so that his listeners can picture the scene, the child relives the fear he experienced when encountering the wolf and succeeds in making his listeners experience that same fear, then what he is doing is art.” (Chapter V)
Art, therefore, is neither a mysterious manifestation of God or beauty nor merely an outlet for accumulated surplus energy. Rather, it constitutes a necessary sphere of human relations, bringing people together through shared emotions.
3. Tolstoy on the Three Formal Conditions of a Genuine Work of Art (Chapter XV)
According to Tolstoy, three fundamental conditions determine whether a work qualifies as genuine art in formal terms and establish its degree of emotional contagion among its recipients.
1. Distinctiveness of the Feeling Communicated: The more individual, distinctive, and unusual the emotional state conveyed, the stronger its impact on the recipient and the more intense the pleasure it may produce.
2. Clarity of Communication: The clearer and more direct the expression of the feeling, the more completely the recipient can identify with the artist and experience the emotion being communicated.
3. Sincerity of the Artist: This is the most decisive and vital of the three conditions. The artist must genuinely experience the emotion and express it out of an inner necessity, rather than merely to influence others or obtain commercial gain.
Tolstoy emphasizes the primacy of sincerity:
“Of these three conditions, the third—sincerity—is the most important… It also encompasses the first condition, because an artist who is sincere will express a feeling exactly as he or she experiences it… Nothing other than sincerity compels the artist to express the feeling he or she wishes to communicate in the clearest and most precise manner.” (Chapter XV)
For Tolstoy, sincerity provides the foundation of authentic artistic expression. When artists genuinely experience the emotions they communicate, their works acquire the power to establish a meaningful emotional connection with others.
4. Ethical Evaluation and the Religious Consciousness of an Age (Chapters VI, XVI, and XX)
The transmission of emotion is sufficient to qualify a work as art in a technical sense. However, the ethical and substantive value of the emotion is another matter. It depends on the religious consciousness (religious perception) of a particular society and historical period. Tolstoy compares this consciousness to the current of a flowing river, which indicates the direction in which society is moving.
According to Tolstoy, the religious consciousness of his age can be expressed as follows:
“The religious consciousness of our age, in its broadest application, is the awareness that our material and spiritual well-being, both individual and collective, temporary and lasting, depends on all people living together in brotherhood and on the unity of love among us.” (Chapter XVI)
On the basis of this religious consciousness, Tolstoy identifies two forms of good Christian art appropriate to his time:
1. Religious Art: Works that arise from the love of God and humanity and communicate feelings that lead people toward universal brotherhood and unity. Examples include Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, the novels of Charles Dickens, and Dostoevsky’s The House of the Dead.
2. Universal Everyday Art: Works that communicate simple emotions—such as joy, compassion, and tenderness—that people throughout the world can share. Differences in race, social class, or culture do not limit them.
These two categories reflect Tolstoy’s conviction that art should transcend social divisions and foster a sense of common humanity. Its value lies not in the refinement of aesthetic pleasure but in its capacity to cultivate empathy, solidarity, and mutual understanding.
Conclusion: Why What Is Art by Tolstoy Still Matters (Chapter XX)
For Lev N. Tolstoy, art is neither a luxurious pastime reserved for a privileged elite nor a vehicle for abstract aesthetic pleasure. Instead, art is an organ of human life that transforms conscious knowledge into lived emotion.
Its ultimate purpose is to move humanity toward a union of brotherly love. In this way, art carries the ideal beyond intellectual understanding and into directly experienced feeling. By fostering emotional solidarity, art can help humanity move away from violence, punishment, and hostility toward a more compassionate way of life.
Tolstoy’s theory thus places ethical responsibility at the heart of artistic creation. A work’s significance does not depend primarily on its beauty, technical sophistication, or capacity to entertain. Rather, its deepest value emerges from the sincerity with which it communicates emotion and the extent to which that emotion contributes to human unity. In this respect, his position differs sharply from Friedrich Nietzsche’s view of art and music, which values art as an affirmation of life rather than as a moral bond between people.
Bibliographic Reference
Tolstoy, L. N. (2011). What Is Art? (Translated into Turkish by Mazlum Beyhan). Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, Hasan Âli Yücel Classics Series.
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