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.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Art is a deliberate act where one person uses symbols to share feelings with others, causing them to feel the same way.
- In plain terms
- Art shares feelings through symbols so others feel them too.
- What can you take from it?
- Art connects people by transmitting emotions.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How does art make you feel?
- Can art change your perspective?
Another view
Not all art successfully infects others with the intended feeling.
More from Leo Tolstoy
To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed …
Permalink to quote #58 Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious Idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, [play or] a…
Permalink to quote #60 The activity of art is... as important as the activity of language itself, and as universal.
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