Halo (religious iconography) between the alternative terms in English is rather unclear. The oldest term in English is "glory", the only one available in the Middle Ages, but now largely obsolete. It came from the French "gloire" which has much the same range of meanings as "glory". "Gloriole" does not appear in this sense until 1844, being a modern invention, as a diminutive, in French also. "Halo" is first found in English in this sense in 1646 (nearly a century after the optical or astronomical sense). Both "halos" and "haloes" may be used as plural forms, and halo may be used as a
What Is Art? to justify their own tastes. Jahn notes the "often confusing use of categorisation" and the lack of definition of the key concept of emotion. Bayley writes that "the effectiveness of "What is Art?" lies not so much in its positive assertions as in its rejection of much that was taken for granted in the aesthetic theories of the time". Noyes criticises Tolstoy's dismissal of beauty, but states that, "despite its shortcomings", "What is Art?" "may be pronounced the most stimulating critical work of our time". Simmons mentions the "occasional brilliant passages" along with the "repetition, awkward language, and loose terminology".