What Is Art? by Leo Tolstoy

"The feeling of self-denial and submission to fate or God portrayed in a drama, the raptures of lovers described in a novel, a feeling of sensuousness depicted in a painting, the briskness conveyed by a triumphal march in music, the gaiety evoked by a dance, the comicality caused by a funny anecdote, the feeling of peace conveyed by an evening landscape or a lulling song—all this is art.
Once the spectators or listeners are infected by the same feeling the author has experienced, this is art."