Tolstoy's 'What is Art?'

With its demand that works of art be judged according to the their morally didactic content, Tolstoy's reviled aesthetics has seemed to exclude from the canon far too many works widely accepted as masterpieces. First published in 1985, this study argues that these are not mere oversights on the part of Tolstoy, and contends that, even if we eventually reject much of what Tolstoy concludes, his account of the nature and purpose of art is nevertheless worth consideration.