What Is Art?

E723172

aesthetic treatise philosophical essay

"What Is Art?" is an influential philosophical essay by Leo Tolstoy in which he critiques conventional aesthetics and argues that true art is defined by its capacity to sincerely communicate emotion and promote moral and spiritual unity among people.

Try in SPARQL Jump to: Surface forms Statements Referenced by

All labels observed (1)

Label	Occurrences
What Is Art? canonical	1

Statements (47)

Predicate	Object
instanceOf	aesthetic treatise ⓘ philosophical essay ⓘ
author	Leo Tolstoy NERFINISHED ⓘ
centralClaim	art is a means of human communication ⓘ the value of art is determined by its moral and spiritual effect ⓘ true art is defined by its capacity to sincerely communicate emotion ⓘ true art promotes moral and spiritual unity among people ⓘ
countryOfOrigin	Russian Empire ⓘ
criticizes	art for art’s sake ⓘ art that does not promote moral improvement ⓘ decadent and elitist art of his time ⓘ use of technical complexity as a false measure of artistic value ⓘ
form	prose ⓘ
genre	aesthetics ⓘ philosophy of art ⓘ
historicalContext	critique of contemporary European art institutions ⓘ late 19th‑century European culture ⓘ
influenced	20th‑century debates on the social function of art ⓘ moralistic approaches to aesthetics ⓘ theories of art as communication ⓘ
influencedBy	Leo Tolstoy’s Christian moral philosophy ⓘ Tolstoy’s social and political views ⓘ
mainTopic	aesthetics ⓘ definition of art ⓘ ethics and art ⓘ
notableIdea	art as the infection of feeling from artist to audience ⓘ art should contribute to the brotherhood of humankind ⓘ criterion of art based on sincerity and clarity of emotion ⓘ distinction between good art and counterfeit art ⓘ
originalLanguage	Russian ⓘ
philosophicalTradition	Christian moralism ⓘ Russian religious philosophy ⓘ
positionOnArt	advocates art that is accessible to all people ⓘ criticizes art that serves only the pleasure of the elite ⓘ links good art with Christian and universal moral ideals ⓘ rejects purely formal and hedonistic definitions of art ⓘ
publicationYear	1897 ⓘ
relatedWorkOfAuthor	Anna Karenina NERFINISHED ⓘ The Kingdom of God Is Within You NERFINISHED ⓘ War and Peace NERFINISHED ⓘ
structure	extended argumentative essay ⓘ
targetAudience	artists ⓘ critics ⓘ general educated public ⓘ
theme	relationship between art and morality ⓘ social responsibility of the artist ⓘ spiritual role of art in human life ⓘ

How these facts were elicited

The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.

Instruction

You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10.

# Requirements
- If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list.
- If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list.
- Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf".
- Do not get too wordy.
- Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.

Input

Subject: What Is Art?
Description of subject: "What Is Art?" is an influential philosophical essay by Leo Tolstoy in which he critiques conventional aesthetics and argues that true art is defined by its capacity to sincerely communicate emotion and promote moral and spiritual unity among people.

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (person’s given name) → notableWork → What Is Art? ⓘ

subject surface form: Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy