I thought Hegel's "Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics" was good. I might have liked to introduction as much as the book. He traces man's self-consciousness from cave paintings on.

To draw an ox is to create a visual abstraction. It's not a particular ox, but a general ox, the idea of an ox. Man the artist accumulates ideas this way until he figures out that the way to paint the idea of ideas is to paint himself, man the artist. I liked this line of thought in the book. The book also looks into the irony of the Schlegels, which Hegel sets himself against. Well, maybe the Schlegel's were ahead of them there. (Nobody likes a smart as?)

Tolstoy's book 'What is art?' is very useful as an objection to the conventional views at the time. he pays a bit too much attention to the importance of religion, but gives a useful alternative definition of art that escapes objective beauty.

It is an exciting book. But Tolstoy is, in much of this book, a hater. What a strange man!