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Analysis Of ' The Other Hand '

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Hunter Godwin Major Kieser English 101 27 October 2015 Beauty Educates The meaning of beauty and how it applies to the viewer varies among people. Leo Tolstoy reveals that the beauty we perceive through art can change or support a pre-conceived idea. On the other hand, Elaine Scarry’s view resides in the fact that our view of beauty promotes the spirit of justice. Art is not so much the focus, rather beauty is the driving force of these two essays. There is an educational aspect to beauty that implies improvement within an individual or society and is promoted through both essays. Leo Tolstoy’s “What is Art” rejects any definition of art based on the conception of beauty. Tolstoy tends to believe there is no way to define the standard of beauty however it simply resides in our pleasures. The things that please people vary, therefore a standard of beauty does not truly exist. However, art does promote feelings. Art can therefore be judged on how it makes us feel, whether it is a feeling of truth or goodness. Art is beautiful if the viewer receives some feeling that the artist intended for the viewer to feel, that is what makes it beautiful. "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). Does the viewer transmit some sort of feeling or emotion to this

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