What Is Art?

The Fen chandelier in the new Currey & Company product introductions.

“It is assumed that everyone knows and understands what is meant by the word beauty,” Leo Tolstoy wrote. “And yet not only is this not known, but now, after mountains of books have been written…the question of what beauty is remains completely open.” This statement, along with others just as weighty, is included in the book What Is Art? —asmall but powerful exploration of aesthetics completed by the Russian author in 1897....