What Is Art?
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Geoffrey Blaisdell
-
By:
-
Leo Tolstoy
About this listen
Tolstoy is an author critics typically rank alongside Shakespeare and Homer. A sustained consideration of the cultural import of art by someone who himself was an artist of the highest stature will always remain relevant and fascinating to anyone interested in the place of art and literature in society.
Public Domain (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Leo Tolstoy Complete Collection
- War and Peace; Anna Karenina; Resurrection; Short Stories; Novellas; and Non-Fiction
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble, Malk Williams, Emma Gregory
- Length: 186 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Collection includes unabridged recordings of Leo Tolstoy's 3 timeless novels; all his major novellas and short stories; and 4 renowned works of non-fiction in one audiobook, all read by Audie Award-winning narrators.
-
-
Legendary author, flawless narrations.
- By Kindle Customer on 06-07-24
By: Leo Tolstoy
-
Hadji Murat
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1851 Leo Tolstoy enlisted in the Russian army and was sent to the Caucasus to help defeat the Chechens. During this war a great Avar chieftain, Hadji Murád, broke with the Chechen leader Shamil and fled to the Russians for safety. Months later, while attempting to rescue his family from Shamil’s prison, Hadji Murád was pursued by those he had betrayed and, after fighting the most heroic battle of his life, was killed.
By: Leo Tolstoy
-
War and Peace
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 61 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Often called the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is at once an epic of the Napoleonic wars, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit. Tolstoy's genius is clearly seen in the multitude of characters in this massive chronicle, all of them fully realized and equally memorable.
-
-
Glad I finally decided to read it
- By Plumeria on 09-25-05
By: Leo Tolstoy
-
The Cossacks
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: David Thorn
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The colorful Cossack way of life is made alive and real in this historical novel.
Tolstoy's first novel and acknowledged as one of his best, it is based on his own forays into the Caucasus, abandoning his aristocrat life of gambling and carousing in Moscow and volunteering to be attached to the regular army.
-
-
Tolstoy masterpiece is wounded by terrible audio
- By Darwin8u on 07-24-13
By: Leo Tolstoy
-
Philosophical Investigations
- By: Ludwig Wittgenstein, G. E. M. Anscombe - translator
- Narrated by: Jonathan Booth
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Philosophical Investigations was published in 1953, two years after the death of its author. In the preface written in Cambridge in 1945 where he was professor of philosophy he states: ‘Four years ago I had occasion to re-read my first book (the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) and to explain its ideas to someone. It suddenly seemed to me that I should publish those old thoughts and the new ones together: that the latter could be seen in the right light only by contrast with and against the background of my old way of thinking.’
-
-
One of the Masterpieces of 20th Philosophy
- By Oberon on 12-30-20
By: Ludwig Wittgenstein, and others
-
War and Peace (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Leo Tolstoy, Louise Maude - translator, Aylmer Maude - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 55 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In early nineteenth-century Russia, the threat of Napoleon’s invasion looms, and the lives of millions are about to be changed forever. This includes Pierre Bezúkhov, illegitimate son of an aristocrat; Andrew Bolkónski, ambitious military scion; and Natásha Rostóva, compassionate daughter of a nobleman. All of them are unprepared for what lies ahead. Alongside their fellow compatriots - a catalog of enduring literary characters - Pierre, Andrew, and Natásha will be irrevocably torn between fate and free will.
-
-
Tremendous narration
- By steve thomas on 08-14-20
By: Leo Tolstoy, and others
-
The Leo Tolstoy Complete Collection
- War and Peace; Anna Karenina; Resurrection; Short Stories; Novellas; and Non-Fiction
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble, Malk Williams, Emma Gregory
- Length: 186 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Collection includes unabridged recordings of Leo Tolstoy's 3 timeless novels; all his major novellas and short stories; and 4 renowned works of non-fiction in one audiobook, all read by Audie Award-winning narrators.
-
-
Legendary author, flawless narrations.
- By Kindle Customer on 06-07-24
By: Leo Tolstoy
-
Hadji Murat
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1851 Leo Tolstoy enlisted in the Russian army and was sent to the Caucasus to help defeat the Chechens. During this war a great Avar chieftain, Hadji Murád, broke with the Chechen leader Shamil and fled to the Russians for safety. Months later, while attempting to rescue his family from Shamil’s prison, Hadji Murád was pursued by those he had betrayed and, after fighting the most heroic battle of his life, was killed.
By: Leo Tolstoy
-
War and Peace
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 61 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Often called the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is at once an epic of the Napoleonic wars, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit. Tolstoy's genius is clearly seen in the multitude of characters in this massive chronicle, all of them fully realized and equally memorable.
-
-
Glad I finally decided to read it
- By Plumeria on 09-25-05
By: Leo Tolstoy
-
The Cossacks
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: David Thorn
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The colorful Cossack way of life is made alive and real in this historical novel.
Tolstoy's first novel and acknowledged as one of his best, it is based on his own forays into the Caucasus, abandoning his aristocrat life of gambling and carousing in Moscow and volunteering to be attached to the regular army.
-
-
Tolstoy masterpiece is wounded by terrible audio
- By Darwin8u on 07-24-13
By: Leo Tolstoy
-
Philosophical Investigations
- By: Ludwig Wittgenstein, G. E. M. Anscombe - translator
- Narrated by: Jonathan Booth
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Philosophical Investigations was published in 1953, two years after the death of its author. In the preface written in Cambridge in 1945 where he was professor of philosophy he states: ‘Four years ago I had occasion to re-read my first book (the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) and to explain its ideas to someone. It suddenly seemed to me that I should publish those old thoughts and the new ones together: that the latter could be seen in the right light only by contrast with and against the background of my old way of thinking.’
-
-
One of the Masterpieces of 20th Philosophy
- By Oberon on 12-30-20
By: Ludwig Wittgenstein, and others
-
War and Peace (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Leo Tolstoy, Louise Maude - translator, Aylmer Maude - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 55 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In early nineteenth-century Russia, the threat of Napoleon’s invasion looms, and the lives of millions are about to be changed forever. This includes Pierre Bezúkhov, illegitimate son of an aristocrat; Andrew Bolkónski, ambitious military scion; and Natásha Rostóva, compassionate daughter of a nobleman. All of them are unprepared for what lies ahead. Alongside their fellow compatriots - a catalog of enduring literary characters - Pierre, Andrew, and Natásha will be irrevocably torn between fate and free will.
-
-
Tremendous narration
- By steve thomas on 08-14-20
By: Leo Tolstoy, and others
-
Determined
- A Science of Life Without Free Will
- By: Robert M. Sapolsky
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Robert Sapolsky’s Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: We may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at the base of human behavior, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there is some separate self telling our biology what to do.
-
-
Abridged - no Appendix!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-02-23
-
Critique of Pure Reason
- By: Immanuel Kant
- Narrated by: Michael Lunts
- Length: 27 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason can lay claim to being the most important single work of modern philosophy, a work whose methodology, if not necessarily always its conclusions, has had a profound influence on almost all subsequent philosophical discourse. In this work Kant addresses, in a groundbreaking elucidation of the nature of reason, the age-old question of philosophy: “How do we know what we know?” and the limits of what it is that we can know with certainty.
-
-
Another Great Recording by Ukemi
- By Jack on 03-27-21
By: Immanuel Kant
-
Notes from the Underground
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 4 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A predecessor to such monumental works such as Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Notes From Underground represents a turning point in Dostoyevsky's writing towards the more political side.
In this work, we follow the unnamed narrator of the story, who, disillusioned by the oppression and corruption of the society in which he lives, withdraws from that society into the underground.
-
-
Awful hero, great narrator
- By Tad Davis on 10-13-09
-
Notes from the Underground (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Garnett - translator
- Narrated by: Pete Simonelli
- Length: 4 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Isolated from society in a tenement basement in St. Petersburg, a malicious former civil servant vents his resentments. In the rambling notes that follow, we are exposed to the inner turmoil of the Underground Man, who represents the voice of his generation. An emotional, paranoid knot of contradictions, the spiteful narrator is also desperate to join a society he loathes, if only to prove his superiority to it.
-
-
Amazing
- By Bryan on 02-19-19
By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and others
-
The Myth of Sisyphus
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most influential works of this century, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide; the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning.
-
-
Brilliant work, excellently narrated
- By Richard B. on 04-30-19
By: Albert Camus
-
A History of Western Philosophy
- By: Bertrand Russell
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 38 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Considered to be one of the most important philosophical works of all time, the History of Western Philosophy is a dazzlingly unique exploration of the ideologies of significant philosophers throughout the ages - from Plato and Aristotle through to Spinoza, Kant and the 20th century. Written by a man who changed the history of philosophy himself, this is an account that has never been rivaled since its first publication over 60 years ago.
-
-
Russell's Philosophy, Some History Included
- By Donald on 06-19-21
By: Bertrand Russell
-
Plato's Republic
- By: Plato
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Republic poses questions that endure: What is justice? What form of community fosters the best possible life for human beings? What is the nature and destiny of the soul? What form of education provides the best leaders for a good republic? What are the various forms of poetry and the other arts, and which ones should be fostered and which ones should be discouraged? How does knowing differ from believing?
-
-
BEWARE: shortened version
- By Dranu on 03-08-20
By: Plato
-
Critique of Judgement
- By: Immanuel Kant
- Narrated by: Michael Lunts
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Critique of Judgement was published in 1790 and is divided into two parts, the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement and the Critique of Teleological Judgement. Our ‘judgements of taste’, as Kant describes our aesthetic judgements, have both a personal and a universal function: personal, because we have a subjective aesthetic response to the ‘agreeable’, the ‘beautiful’, the ‘sublime’ and the ‘good’; but also there is a ‘universal’ aspect because our aesthetic response has a ’disinterested’ element. This brings under Kant’s spotlight, for example, the concept of beauty and the perception of beauty.
-
-
Great Philosophic Treatise
- By No to Statism on 09-30-18
By: Immanuel Kant
-
Pensées
- By: Blaise Pascal
- Narrated by: Peter Wickham
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Intended to be a defense of the Christian religion, Pensées is a penetrating collection of thoughts on faith, reason, and theology. Unfinished at the time of Pascal's death, the book consists of philosophical fragments on the "wretchedness" of man and the controversial schisms of the church at the time. It includes the philosopher's infamous wager encouraging belief over agnosticism, as well as his thoughts on numerous other topics. Endlessly quotable, Pensées overflows with pearls of wisdom, each elusive sentence pregnant with a universe of thought.
-
-
Excellent Audiobook!
- By No to Statism on 05-16-19
By: Blaise Pascal
-
Beyond Good and Evil
- By: Friedrich Nietzsche
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings, Roy McMillan
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Continuing where Thus Spoke Zarathustra left off, Nietzsche's controversial work Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most influential philosophical texts of the 19th century and one of the most controversial works of ideology ever written. Attacking the notion of morality as nothing more than institutionalised weakness, Nietzsche criticises past philosophers for their unquestioning acceptance of moral precepts. Nietzsche tried to formulate what he called "the philosophy of the future".
-
-
Great Book, great Audio Narration
- By Bob H on 01-07-11
-
Asian Journals
- India and Japan (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)
- By: Joseph Campbell
- Narrated by: Fred Stella
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the beginning of his career, Joseph Campbell developed a lasting fascination with the cultures of the Far East, and explorations of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy later became recurring motifs in his vast body of work. However, Campbell had to wait until middle age to visit the lands that inspired him so deeply. In 1954, he took a sabbatical from his teaching position and embarked on a year-long voyage through India, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and finally Japan.
-
-
What a journey!
- By Anonymous User on 08-11-18
By: Joseph Campbell
-
Maps of Meaning
- The Architecture of Belief
- By: Jordan B. Peterson
- Narrated by: Jordan B. Peterson
- Length: 30 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos comes a provocative hypothesis that explores the connection between what modern neuropsychology tells us about the brain and what rituals, myths, and religious stories have long narrated. A cutting-edge work that brings together neuropsychology, cognitive science, and Freudian and Jungian approaches to mythology and narrative, Maps of Meaning presents a rich theory that makes the wisdom and meaning of myth accessible to the critical modern mind.
-
-
This is NOT an easy book
- By Stephen on 06-19-18
Related to this topic
-
The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music
- By: Friedrich Nietzsche
- Narrated by: Duncan Steen
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of Nietzsche’s earliest works, The Birth of Tragedy (1872) is a remarkable source of inspiration. It is here that the philosopher expresses his frustration with the contemporary world and urges man to embrace Dionysian energy once more. He refutes European culture since the time of Socrates, arguing that it is one-sidedly Apollonian and prevents man from living in optimistic harmony with the sufferings of life.
-
-
The Apollonian vs The Dionysian
- By JCW on 02-05-18
-
Measure for Measure
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Royal Shakespeare Company
- Length: 2 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A performance of the tragi-comedy by the Royal Shakespeare Company. When a young woman is offered the choice of saving a man's life at the price of her own chastity, what should she do? The political and moral corruption of Vienna has driven Duke Vincentio into hiding while his deputy governor, Angelo, is left to revive the old discipline of civic authority. Angelo's first act is to imprison Claudio, a young nobleman who has gotten his betrothed, Juliet, with child.
-
-
Highly recommended
- By Todd on 10-16-08
-
The Gay Science (The Joyful Wisdom)
- By: Friedrich Nietzsche
- Narrated by: Michael Lunts
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gay Science (The Joyful Wisdom) is one of Nietzsche's greatest books. His wonderfully fertile mind roams over mankind, his thoughts, his emotions, his behaviour and his weaknesses with remarkable clarity, with insight - but also with humour!In this work are 383 separate paragraphs, some short, some long, but all singular observations - the epitome of his famous aphoristic style. 'Morality is the herd instinct in the individual.'
-
-
I am now a full-fledged fan of Nietzsche
- By RS on 02-24-18
-
Plato's Phaedrus
- By: Plato
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 2 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Phaedrus lures Socrates outside the walls of Athens, where he seldom goes, by promising to share a new work by his friend and mentor, Lysias, a famous writer of speeches. This dialogue provides a powerful example of the dialectical writing that Plato uses to manifest ideas that are essential to human existence and to living a good life. Phaedrus shows how oral and written forms of language relate to each other and to philosophy.
-
-
six pages (Hackett Complete Works edition) missing
- By S. Lee on 01-17-19
By: Plato
-
The Story of Philosophy
- The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Durant lucidly describes the philosophical systems of such world-famous “monarchs of the mind” as Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire, and Nietzsche. Along with their ideas, he offers their flesh-and-blood biographies, placing their thoughts within their own time and place and elucidating their influence on our modern intellectual heritage. This book is packed with wisdom and wit.
-
-
Fantastic and insightful book
- By ESK on 01-25-13
By: Will Durant
-
The Renaissance
- Studies in Art and Poetry
- By: Walter Pater
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Published to great acclaim in 1873, Walter Pater’s compendium of idiosyncratic, impressionistic essays on the Renaissance gained him a reputation as a daring modern philosopher. Oscar Wilde called it the “holy writ of beauty.” It was Pater’s cry of “art for art’s sake” that became the manifesto for the aesthetic movement. He believed that art should be sensual and that beauty should rank as the highest ideal. Marked by elegant fluency, Pater’s essays discuss Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and other artists who, for him, embodied the spirit of the Renaissance.
-
-
Wanda McCaddon and Pater = 😍
- By Tyler on 02-01-21
By: Walter Pater
-
The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music
- By: Friedrich Nietzsche
- Narrated by: Duncan Steen
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of Nietzsche’s earliest works, The Birth of Tragedy (1872) is a remarkable source of inspiration. It is here that the philosopher expresses his frustration with the contemporary world and urges man to embrace Dionysian energy once more. He refutes European culture since the time of Socrates, arguing that it is one-sidedly Apollonian and prevents man from living in optimistic harmony with the sufferings of life.
-
-
The Apollonian vs The Dionysian
- By JCW on 02-05-18
-
Measure for Measure
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Royal Shakespeare Company
- Length: 2 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A performance of the tragi-comedy by the Royal Shakespeare Company. When a young woman is offered the choice of saving a man's life at the price of her own chastity, what should she do? The political and moral corruption of Vienna has driven Duke Vincentio into hiding while his deputy governor, Angelo, is left to revive the old discipline of civic authority. Angelo's first act is to imprison Claudio, a young nobleman who has gotten his betrothed, Juliet, with child.
-
-
Highly recommended
- By Todd on 10-16-08
-
The Gay Science (The Joyful Wisdom)
- By: Friedrich Nietzsche
- Narrated by: Michael Lunts
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gay Science (The Joyful Wisdom) is one of Nietzsche's greatest books. His wonderfully fertile mind roams over mankind, his thoughts, his emotions, his behaviour and his weaknesses with remarkable clarity, with insight - but also with humour!In this work are 383 separate paragraphs, some short, some long, but all singular observations - the epitome of his famous aphoristic style. 'Morality is the herd instinct in the individual.'
-
-
I am now a full-fledged fan of Nietzsche
- By RS on 02-24-18
-
Plato's Phaedrus
- By: Plato
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 2 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Phaedrus lures Socrates outside the walls of Athens, where he seldom goes, by promising to share a new work by his friend and mentor, Lysias, a famous writer of speeches. This dialogue provides a powerful example of the dialectical writing that Plato uses to manifest ideas that are essential to human existence and to living a good life. Phaedrus shows how oral and written forms of language relate to each other and to philosophy.
-
-
six pages (Hackett Complete Works edition) missing
- By S. Lee on 01-17-19
By: Plato
-
The Story of Philosophy
- The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Durant lucidly describes the philosophical systems of such world-famous “monarchs of the mind” as Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire, and Nietzsche. Along with their ideas, he offers their flesh-and-blood biographies, placing their thoughts within their own time and place and elucidating their influence on our modern intellectual heritage. This book is packed with wisdom and wit.
-
-
Fantastic and insightful book
- By ESK on 01-25-13
By: Will Durant
-
The Renaissance
- Studies in Art and Poetry
- By: Walter Pater
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Published to great acclaim in 1873, Walter Pater’s compendium of idiosyncratic, impressionistic essays on the Renaissance gained him a reputation as a daring modern philosopher. Oscar Wilde called it the “holy writ of beauty.” It was Pater’s cry of “art for art’s sake” that became the manifesto for the aesthetic movement. He believed that art should be sensual and that beauty should rank as the highest ideal. Marked by elegant fluency, Pater’s essays discuss Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and other artists who, for him, embodied the spirit of the Renaissance.
-
-
Wanda McCaddon and Pater = 😍
- By Tyler on 02-01-21
By: Walter Pater
-
Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
- By: Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here in one volume are both the Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series from one of the most influential philosophers in American history. Although Ralph Waldo Emerson, perhaps America’s most famous philosopher, did not wish to be referred to as a transcendentalist, he is nevertheless considered the founder of this major movement of nineteenth-century American thought. Emerson was influenced by a liberal religious training; theological study; personal contact with the Romanticists Coleridge, Carlyle, and Wordsworth; and a strong indigenous sense of individualism and self-reliance.
-
-
Riggenbach's Essays, Not Emerson's
- By Jake Behm on 12-01-15
-
Self Reliance
- By: Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Narrated by: Alana Munro
- Length: 1 hr and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." This essay is a considered a watershed moment in which transcendentalism became a major cultural movement. An American classic.
-
-
Don't buy this
- By Leah L on 07-31-16
-
Aristotle's Poetics
- By: Aristotle
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 1 hr and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aristotle's Poetics is best known for its definitions and analyses of tragedy and comedy, but it also applies to truth and beauty as they are manifested in the other arts. In our age, when the natural and social sciences have dominated the quest for truth, it is helpful to consider why Aristotle claimed poetry is more philosophical and more significant than history. Like so many other works by Aristotle, the Poetics has dominated the way we have thought about all forms of dramatic performance in Europe and America ever since.
-
-
Skips a few sections
- By Dave Wilson on 03-16-19
By: Aristotle
-
The Varieties of Religious Experience
- By: William James
- Narrated by: Jim Killavey
- Length: 18 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Varieties of Religious Experience is considered to be the classic work in the field. To quote Wikipedia, "James was most interested in understanding personal religious experience. The importance of James to the psychology of religion - and to psychology more generally - is difficult to overstate. He discussed many essential issues that remain of vital concern today. What makes James writing so special is that he could take a very complex subject and, without watering it down, make it understandable to 'the rest of us.'"
-
-
Profound stuff
- By Empowerment on 09-05-09
By: William James
-
The Discarded Image
- An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Richard Elwood
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Discarded Image paints a lucid picture of the medieval worldview, providing the historical and cultural background to the literature of the middle ages and renaissance. It describes the 'image' discarded by later years as "the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organization of their theology, science, and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental model of the universe". This, Lewis' last book, has been hailed as "the final memorial to the work of a great scholar and teacher and a wise and noble mind".
-
-
I hope more of Lewis's scholastic stuff is coming
- By James on 04-01-21
By: C. S. Lewis
-
The Dream of Reason, New Edition
- A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance
- By: Anthony Gottlieb
- Narrated by: Anthony Gottlieb
- Length: 19 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Already a classic, this landmark study of early Western thought now appears in a new edition with expanded coverage of the Middle Ages. Author Anthony Gottlieb looks afresh at the writings of the great thinkers, questions much of conventional wisdom, and explains his findings with unbridled brilliance and clarity. From the pre-Socratic philosophers through the celebrated days of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, up to Renaissance visionaries like Erasmus and Bacon, philosophy emerges here as a phenomenon unconfined by any one discipline.
-
-
Bias spoils the work.
- By MC on 08-21-20
By: Anthony Gottlieb
-
William Blake vs the World
- By: John Higgs
- Narrated by: John Higgs
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A wild and unexpected journey through culture, science, philosophy, and religion to better understand the mercurial genius of William Blake.
-
-
Best book ever
- By idamae on 11-04-22
By: John Higgs
-
Letters to a Young Poet
- By: Rainer Maria Rilke, Stephen Mitchell - translator
- Narrated by: Stephen Mitchell
- Length: 1 hr and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ranier Maria Rilke challenges you, "...to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers." Rilke's ability to combine the sensual and the spiritual into an inspired vision of the art of living is brought to vivid life in his letters. Through his eyes, the everyday difficulties of love, sex, solitude, sadness, and doubt are seen as the archetypal elements of the drama called life.
-
-
Priceless Recordings of Intense Feeling
- By David on 10-08-04
By: Rainer Maria Rilke, and others
-
Plato's Republic
- By: Plato
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Republic poses questions that endure: What is justice? What form of community fosters the best possible life for human beings? What is the nature and destiny of the soul? What form of education provides the best leaders for a good republic? What are the various forms of poetry and the other arts, and which ones should be fostered and which ones should be discouraged? How does knowing differ from believing?
-
-
BEWARE: shortened version
- By Dranu on 03-08-20
By: Plato
-
The Greek Way
- By: Edith Hamilton
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on a thorough study of Greek life and civilization, of Greek literature, philosophy, and art, The Greek Way interprets their meaning and brings a realization of the refuge and strength the past can be to us in the troubled present. Miss Hamilton's book must take its place with the few interpretative volumes which are permanently rooted and profoundly alive in our literature.
-
-
...Not as Good as The Echo of Greece
- By The Masked Reviewer on 11-04-16
By: Edith Hamilton
-
Socrates
- A Man for Our Times
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed historian and best-selling author Paul Johnson’s books have been translated into dozens of languages. In Socrates: A Man for Our Times, Johnson draws from little-known resources to construct a fascinating account of one of history’s greatest thinkers. Socrates transcended class limitations in Athens during the fifth century B.C. to develop ideas that still shape the way we think about the human body and soul, including the workings of the human mind.
-
-
Plat-Soc-Paul
- By Megasaurus on 11-17-12
By: Paul Johnson
-
The Life of the Mind
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Considered by many to be Hannah Arendt's greatest work, published as she neared the end of her life, The Life of the Mind investigates thought itself, as it exists in contemplative life. In a shift from her previous writings, most of which focus on the world outside the mind, this work was planned as three volumes that would explore the activities of the mind considered by Arendt to be fundamental. What emerged is a rich, challenging analysis of human mental activity, considered in terms of thinking, willing, and judging.
-
-
English only please
- By angela cozea on 11-20-19
By: Hannah Arendt
What listeners say about What Is Art?
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Stacy Gordon
- 11-23-22
Very Good Book, Terrible Orator
The orator is terrible. Sounds like a parody. Great book, though. I highly Recommend it!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 04-28-23
Tolstoy Focuses His Genius on Art
The thing about reading Tolstoy is that he says things you've already thought and suspected, but says it better than you can. As with all of Tolstoy's books, his characteristic style, personality, and moralism is suffused throughout. Even if you walk away disagreeing, you feel edified after having wrestled with the content. So, where to start?
What about his situating us in the strange world of art itself? And it is strange when you think about it. We're taken backstage to an opera or a ballet. We feel like we're really there. We hear the murmuring, yelling, shifting, tapping, groaning, shuffling, and all that white noise we'd expect backstage or during a rehearsal or practice. He points out how inane a lot of things are that go on. The stage director is yelling at everyone. Everyone there just grins and bears it. So much money is spent on all the costumes and makeup. So many people pay to see the end product. No matter how much the conductor yells at everyone, there is no limit to the amount of verbal, and sometimes physical, abuse they endure. All of this begs the question. What is this 'thing' that all these people are working toward creating?
And that's just opera. There are all the other modes of art as well.
So, what's that eternal, almost Socratic, question? What is art?
What then comes is a virtual whirlwind tour of pretty much every aesthetic theory on the market. It's a panorama of the entire aesthetic terrain at the time. No philosopher is spared Tolstoy's spirited scrutiny or scorn. No theory is sacrosanct. His consideration and sometimes curt dismissal of particular theories are a tad breezy and facile, but it all leads to what Tolstoy thinks anyway, and that's probably the main reason why readers bought the book anyway. I had just slogged through Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment. My mind felt like it had been limping in the hot tar of Kant's stodgy and turgid prose. It was a breath of fresh air to read Tolstoy's inimitable style. Tolstoy's animadversion is basically that 19th-century Art had been essentially about Beauty (and the distinct pleasure aroused from that Beauty), but that this can't be right, since there can be Beauty without Art and Art without Beauty.
Tolstoy's main point is that art is successful when it communicates an intended feeling to its audience. It successfully expresses the particular, comprehensible emotion of the artist as it's concretized in the aesthetic product. There is also a normative element. Any normal Joe should be able to be infected by such a feeling or emotion. It shouldn't only appeal to the elites or a particular class. It should be catholic, and universal. Theories of art might be able to get away with this, but not art itself. You also shouldn't have to endure hermeneutical acrobatics to finally catch art's meaning. A work of art shouldn't be veiled or gnostic or hard to grasp. It shouldn't ever be cryptic or turbid. It should be open to view. Bad art arises from entrenched 'schools of criticism', or being deceived into an 'agony of influence' (where you know that imitating certain art will ensure your social approval by the elites and invitations to those dreaded 'cocktail parties'), or set ways of creating Art, giving rise to the professionalization of those ways, getting a 'career' in those ways, where the main thing is to earn a living and make your Art a commodity, where you have an Aesthetic Emporium of sorts. To think about Art in economic terms is enough to my blood run cold.
As lofty as this sounds, I can't quite come to accept the essence of this theory. I see how it might be necessary in some cases, but I don't see why it would be sufficient in all. And I don't see why it's not sufficient in some cases, and not necessarily necessary in all cases. It's necessary in those cases where the artist intends to infect the audience with such a feeling/emotion. But is it sufficient? Isn't there more to a work of art than the communication of a feeling? Slicing a carrot on a cutting board infects me with a feeling, but that can't be art. Don't get me wrong. Feelings and emotions are about as meaningful as it gets. Perhaps they can be hierarchically related so that the more noble end of the emotional spectrum is that which successful art infects. But is that all there is? Such noble emotions can be aroused by other things besides art, it seems to me. Think of the noble emotions aroused by soldiers in battle.
More to the point, can't we pinpoint all the other things all the other theories of art postulate? As long as they can be put together consistently? Tolstoy dismisses them, but why can't I endorse them without making them necessary and sufficient for a work of art to be successful art? Depending on the context, they might emphasize things that are sufficient, but not necessary, or necessary, but not sufficient. I can't see anything in what Tolstoy argues that would prevent my doing this.
Tolstoy then talks about the best emotions, the ones that saturate his understanding of the essence of Christianity: the unity of men with God and men with one another. The artist whose art infects the audience with these emotions is the best art. There is some affinity with Kant's aesthetic sentiments. Kant called Beauty the symbol of morality and Tolstoy is concerned not to elevate Beauty above Morality, which he saw art in the elite classes doing. Also, art shouldn't arouse something prurient, like the sexual instinct alone, if at all. Trent Reznor's 'Animal' is out. Any art that expresses base emotions is condemned. I mostly agree with this. I do think art, along these lines, if done well, and if appreciated in the right spirit, can be edifying in some way I can't, at the moment, specify. Some such lingering idea like all truth being God's truth seems to be relevant. But I digress.
The end has to do with science. Tolstoy argues that the sciences shape how we judge what's important in this life. Change science to reflect what is noblest in life and art will follow suit. I'd have to think about that, but I wonder why it can't go the other way as well. Can't science be affected by art? Again, it just seems to me to depend. Sometimes one can be downstream from the other. Perhaps the movie 'Inherit the Wind' wouldn't have happened had Darwin not published 'Origin of Species', but I wonder about the cultural impact of the movie and how that impact may have impacted science more than Darwin might have impacted culture. I don't know. I'm just speculating. The arts and the sciences are two potent forces and it's hard to believe that influence flows in only one direction.
Overall, a great book well worth your time. Anything by Tolstoy is worth your time. He has the rare quality of being charming when dogmatic, and so one's pique is never fully awoken. The prose is consistently mellifluous and characteristically éclat, not peaks and valleys, but a steady, flowing river. The style is paradoxically romantic and possessed of commonsense realism. His critical attitude is peevish but oftentimes deserved. There are rarely any cavils.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- marc schaeffer
- 11-16-20
beautiful
this book ages like fine wine, as art falls farther and farther into emotionless plagiarism, and folk art dies and memory of folk art dies.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 05-25-22
Genius
This was brilliant! I’ve been thinking about this topic for a long time and I’m glad I found this a month ago. The concepts are really profound and the narrator did a great job!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- hans sandberg
- 12-29-21
Interesting, but not good
It's not a little bit strange that a man with such reactionary, narrow-minded ideas, could write such great novels, whom he as the author of this book reasonably must have condemned as not Christian enough, according to his fanatic populist interpretation.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matthew
- 11-27-21
Terrifyingly True
Tolstoy lays out an understanding of art which challenges, even more so today than in his own time, the direction and motivations of the art that our society charioteers. This book has left me with an understanding that nearly all of what we consider art is not truly art; an answer to the annoying modern debate that people can’t seem to decide on.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Surajit Ghosh
- 07-19-21
Terrible performance by the narrator
His voice is condescending. He neither pronounced German nor French the way they should have been pronounced. But he suddenly tries to read translations from French and German with thick accents. Ridiculous
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cody
- 07-20-21
Leo Tolstoy What Is Art
For such a short book it packs a punch. Incredibly thought provoking. It has consumed my mind since I first listened to it, and have been reappraising all the films, books, comics, video games, and tv shows that I grew up loving. It also makes me seriously rethink what my goal is with my own art. Every one of Tolstoy's later non fiction has changed the way I look at the world. It is delightful by itself to listen to the thoughts of such a historic genius.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 01-31-21
The end all be all in regard to spirituality & Art
the end all be all guidance needed to lift art of all mediums from the depths of social depravity and spiritual/moral corruption.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 12-19-20
Essential reading
Tolstoy's ideas are hauntingly relevant for our day and age. This book is a necessary appraisal of the value of true art and a practical guide toward the creation thereof.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!