Tolstoy represented the later period of Romanticism in Russian literature; art for him was a mystic link between the human world and the higher spheres where "eternal ideas dwell." Along with Afanasy Fet, his artistic and spiritual ally, he saw Art as a higher science, man's only instrument for a true and comprehensive understanding of the world. Romantic tendencies were best realised in Tolstoy's poetry and in some of his dramas, notably Don Juan where the hero is on quest for a romantic ideal, looking everywhere for love "that helps one penetrate into the wonderful universal laws, our world's hidden beginnings," as he put it. "Art can only be a 'means' – all of the 'ends'... it contains in itself," Tolstoy wrote in 1870, in the course of long dispute with those whom he labeled "utilitarianists in literature".Letter to Markevich, 11 January 1870. Works by A.K.Tolstoy in 4 Volumes. 1964. Vol.4 Pp.342–43 Such views automatically made him a "conservative" in the eyes of the revolutionary democrats who formed a large majority in the Russian literary circles of the 1850s and 1860s. Unlike Fet, though, Tolstoy insisted on the artist's total independence from ideology and politics, and felt himself totally free to criticize and mock authorities, a trait that snubbed many people in high places.
