ABSTRACT
One of the commonest beliefs about art is that it is essentially a form of expression, and what is more, the expression of feeling. This view is so common that it is often simply assumed to be true by students, critics and artists themselves, even very great ones. Thus Tolstoy in What is Art? asserts that “art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings and also experience them” (Tolstoy 1930: 123).
