Meaning of art in this context?

Question

A line from Kipling's The Last of the Light Brigade reads thus:They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,What does *art* mean in this context?

Answer 1

Art refers to the poem by Tennyson that spoke of English military glory in Charge of the Light Brigade. Kipling met with the 30 survivors who had no food, money, etc. For those survivors, life was fleeting, but the soldiers were immortalized (for a long time) in Tennyson's poem.