Themes & patterns

Tolstoy distinguishes genuine art, which transmits sincere feelings and unites people, from counterfeit art, which is produced for profit, relies on imitation, effect, or borrowing, and fails to infect the audience with a genuine emotion.

The book argues that art is inseparable from morality and religious perception; art that serves only pleasure or sensuality is harmful, while true art transmits feelings that advance human brotherhood and spiritual progress.

Tolstoy critiques the art of the upper classes as exclusive, inaccessible to the common people, and dependent on the labor of the masses, arguing that this art is perverted and disconnected from universal human experience.

The author asserts that true art must be guided by the highest religious perception of its time, which in the modern era is the ideal of universal brotherhood and unity, rather than by doctrines of any particular church.

Tolstoy defines art as the transmission of feeling from artist to audience, where the work's success is measured by its infectiousness—the degree to which it unites receiver and creator in a shared emotional experience.

The book condemns formal aesthetic theories and professional art critics for justifying whatever art pleases the elite, thereby perverting taste and promoting counterfeit works over genuine art.

Art is presented as a vital spiritual organ for humanity, essential for uniting people across time and space through shared feelings, and for progressing toward collective well-being and brotherhood.

Tolstoy argues that when artists become professionals motivated by remuneration, art loses its sincerity and becomes a trade, producing counterfeit works that corrupt rather than elevate society.