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This is only thing
That makes different between other species............
ART!!!
What is Art? (Russian: Что такое искусство? Chto takoye iskusstvo?) is a book by Leo Tolstoy. It was completed in Russian in 1897 but first published in the English due to difficulties with the Russian censors.
Tolstoy cites the time, effort, public funds, and public respect spent on art and artists as well as the imprecision of general opinions on art[3] as reason for writing the book. In his words, "it is difficult to say what is meant by art, and especially what is good, useful art, art for the sake of which we might condone such sacrifices as are being offered at its shrine".
Throughout the book Tolstoy demonstrates an "unremitting moralism", evaluating artworks in light of his radical Christian ethics, and displaying a willingness to dismiss accepted masters, including Wagner, Shakespeare,and Dante, as well as the bulk of his own writings.[
Having rejected the use of beauty in definitions of art (see aesthetic theory), Tolstoy conceptualises art as anything that communicates emotion: "Art begins when a man, with the purpose of communicating to other people a feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself and expresses it by certain external signs".
This view of art is inclusive: "jokes", "home decoration", and "church services" may all be considered art as long as they convey feeling. It is also amoral: "[f]eelings … very bad and very good, if only they infect the reader … constitute the subject of art"
Tolstoy also notes that the "sincerity" of the artist—that is, the extent to which the artist "experiences the feeling he conveys"—influences the infection.
Evaluating the content of art
While Tolstoy's basic conception of art is broad and amoral, his idea of "good" art is strict and moralistic, based on what he sees as the function of art in the development of humanity:
just as in the evolution of knowledge - that is, the forcing out and supplanting of mistaken and unnecessary knowledge by truer and more necessary knowledge - so the evolution of feelings takes place by means of art, replacing lower feelings, less kind and less needed for the good of humanity, by kinder feelings, more needed for that good. This is the purpose of art.
Christian art
Tolstoy's analysis is influenced by his radical Christian views (see The Kingdom of God is Within You), views which led him to be excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901.[17] He states that Christian art, rooted in "the consciousness of sonship to God and the brotherhood of men":
can evoke reverence for each man's dignity, for every animal’s life, it can evoke the shame of luxury, of violence, of revenge, of using for one’s pleasure objects that are a necessity for other people, it can make people sacrifice themselves to serve others freely and joyfully, without noticing it.
Ultimately, "by calling up the feelings of brotherhood and love in people under imaginary conditions, religious art will accustom people to experiencing the same feelings in reality under the same conditions".
Tolstoy's examples: Schiller's The Robbers, Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities and The Chimes, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Dostoevsky's The House of the Dead, George Eliot's Adam Bede, Ge's Judgement, Liezen-Mayer's Signing the Death Sentence, and paintings "portraying the labouring man with respect and love" such as those by Millet, Breton, Lhermitte, and Defregger.
Universal art
"Universal" art[20] illustrates that people are "already united in the oneness of life's joys and sorrows"[22] by communicating "feelings of the simplest, most everyday sort, accessible to all people without exception, such as the feelings of merriment, tenderness, cheerfulness, peacefulness, and so on".[18] Tolstoy contrasts this ideal with art that is partisan in nature, whether it be by class, religion, nation, or style.[23]
Tolstoy's examples: he mentions, with many qualifiers, the works of Cervantes, Dickens, Moliere, Gogol, and Pushkin, comparing all of these unfavourably to the story of Joseph.[21] In music he commends a violin aria of Bach, the E-flat major nocturne of Chopin, and "selected passages" from Schubert, Haydn, Chopin, and Mozart. He also speaks briefly of genre paintings and landscapes.[24]
Obscurity versus accessibility
Tolstoy notes the susceptibility of his contemporaries to the "charm of obscurity".[25] Works have become laden with "euphemisms, mythological and historical allusions", and general "vagueness, mysteriousness, obscurity and inaccessibility to the masses".[25] Tolstoy lambastes such works, insisting that art can and should be comprehensible to everyone. Having emphasised that art has a function in the improvement of humanity - capable of expressing man’s best sentiment - he finds it offensive that artists should be so wilfully and arrogantly abstruse.[26]