Art does not need to be beautiful to be art. Although this may have been the prevailing definition according to aesthetic theorists throughout the history of art, is not a requirement of art Art does not necessarily have to bring pleasure to the viewer; what makes it art is that it communicates feelings between the artist and evokes these feelings with others, by Vladimir Nabokov, although criticized for being dark and twisted, it should be considered a work of art. Nabokov wrote the book intentionally and with purpose; he explored emotions deliberately and managed to find the right words to express his work to readers not just because it was written so eloquently but also because it was captivating. Nabokov explores feelings of sympathy, love, heartbreak, in a beautifully disturbing way, uses a dark sense of humor to hypnotize the audience and I find he is able to unfold comedy with a such a taboo topic; like the obsession with girls, who many would deem unfit for society, is a work of art in itself. When I read Nabokov's memoirs and confession of the times spent with Lolita, I can feel his emotions. I can hear the truth in his voice and feel the compassion he felt towards Lolita. Even though my morality tells me to feel disgusted towards him because he is what we would consider a pedophile, I cannot completely submit to feeling this way simply based on what society deems ethical. Tolstoy would agree that, although Lolita meets some of the criteria for being considered a work of art, it lacks the ability to express a universal feeling that everyone can agree with; there is no clear emotional bond that binds the public and the universe of artists...... middle of paper...... one could feel towards a pedophile. His love for her, though foreign and unusual, was still closely tied to those same emotions that any man would feel for a woman with whom he was completely and unquestionably in love. When Vladamir managed to draw compassion from me for Humbert Humbert, I felt more compelled to see his fiction novel as not so much disturbing as a beautiful tragic love story. Works Cited Carroll, Noel. Philosophy of art: a contemporary introduction. Routledge. London, 1999 Danto, Arthur. The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 61, no. 19, Sixty-first Annual Meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association. October 15, 1964. Pp 571-584. Journal of Philosophy, Inc.Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. Vintage books. Random house audio. New York, June 1997Tolstoy, Leone. Art as communication of feeling: what is art? Indianapolis, 1960.