# Endnotes explained — What Is Art?

> Chapter companion for What Is Art? by Leo Tolstoy.

## What happens

The endnotes provide translator's notes, citations, and clarifications on Tolstoy's references, including discussions on censorship, aesthetics, and various philosophical and artistic sources.

## Themes in this chapter

### Critique of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

The endnotes extensively cite Schasler, Knight, and others, critiquing the metaphysical and historical foundations of aesthetics.

### Perversion of Art by Professionalism and Gain

Notes on censorship and the distortion of Tolstoy's critiques of luxury and social order reflect the perversion of art by external interests.

## Character check-ins

### Leo Tolstoy

Referenced as the author whose work is being annotated, with notes on his views on Church religion, luxury, and land ownership.

### M. Schasler

Cited multiple times as a source on the history of aesthetics.

### Richard Knight

Cited as a source in the Philosophy of the Beautiful.

### Richard Kralik

Cited as a source on aesthetics.

### Plato

Mentioned in the context of aesthetic theories and the separation of beauty and art.

### Aristotle

Mentioned in relation to aesthetic theories and the separation of beauty and art.

### Paul Verlaine

Quoted in a poetic excerpt about music and art.

### Stéphane Mallarmé

Quoted on the theory of suggestion and enigma in poetry.

## Key lines

> Tolstoy’s remarks on Church religion were reworded so as to seem to relate only to the Western Church, and his disapproval of luxurious life was made to apply not, say, to Queen Victoria or Nicholas II , but to the Caesars or the Pharaohs.

The censor altered Tolstoy's criticisms of the Church and luxury to target ancient figures instead of contemporary rulers.

_Illustrates censorship of Tolstoy's work._

> The Russian peasant is usually a member of a village commune, and has therefore a right to a share in the land belonging to the village. Tolstoy disapproves of the order of society which allows less land for the support of a whole village full of people than is sometimes owned by a single landed proprietor.

Tolstoy criticizes the social order where a village of peasants has less land than a single landowner.

_Explains Tolstoy's view on land inequality._

> There is no science which more than aesthetics has been handed over to the reveries of the metaphysicians. From Plato down to the received doctrines of our day, people have made of art a strange amalgam of quintessential fancies and transcendental mysteries...

Aesthetics has been dominated by metaphysical speculation, turning art into a mix of fancies and mysteries.

_Critique of aesthetic philosophy._

## Links

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