Leo Tolstoy on Art
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“The activity of art is... as important as the activity of language itself, and as universal.”
“Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen.”
“Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one consciously, by means of certain external symbols, conveys to others the feelings one has experienced, whereby people so infected by these feelings, also experience them.”
“In order to correctly define art, it is necessary, first of all, to cease to consider it as a means to pleasure and consider it as one of the conditions of human life. ...Reflecting on it in this way, we cannot fail to observe that art is one of the means of effective communication between people.”