The exhibition “What Is Art”, designed for the Kuzminsky House at Yasnaya Polyana, helps the visitors, in the vivid and emotional way, to plunge into the atmosphere of Leo Tolstoy’s life in the period of time when his genius and his original manner of writing were developed. It shows about 20 years of his biography: from 1851 (beginning of his literary career) to 1869 (when the work on War and Peace was finished).

 

For Leo Tolstoy, it was the time of ascent of his own Everest, of the peak of his art. Tolstoy used to compare the way of human life to a river. And the first 20 years of his writing can be compared to a deep and mighty flow, which is still gathering more strength and is getting wider and wider; there are no signs of drying up or shallowing, there are no sharp bends yet.

 

 

It was that very period of time that gave to the world one of the greatest literary masterpieces and aroused an enormous interest to its creator that has remained as keen as before up to now. The exhibition is focused on bright and vivid facts of Tolstoy’s biography, which were marked with strong emotional experiences and were this or that way reflected in the novel War and Peace.

 

 

The exhibition is focused on bright and vivid facts of Tolstoy’s biography, which were marked with strong emotional experiences and were this or that way reflected in the novel War and Peace.

 

 

 

The exhibits were selected on the basis of Tolstoy’s own diaries, letters and writings (both fiction and non-fiction), and also photo-materials and memoirs of his contemporaries.

 

 

The main task was to let the visitors see and feel the artistic and emotional values Tolstoy proclaimed in that period of his life.

 

 

 

So, the exhibition was made and the materials arranged according to the principle as expressed in an old Chinese proverb: “tell me - and I will forget; show me – and I will remember; involve me – and I will learn”. That is the way War and Peace, as one of the greatest creations in the world culture, needs to be shown.

 

 

Project coordinator: Vladimir Tolstoy, Director, Yasnaya Polyana Museum-estate

Author of the exhibition conception: Irina Trukhacheva, Senior Curator, Yasnaya Polyana Museum-estate

Author of artistic conception and design: Alexander Konov, Honoured Artist of RF

Design and equipment: “Museum-design” studio