fine art

(fīn)

a. Art produced or intended primarily for beauty rather than utility.

b. often fine arts Any of the art forms, such as sculpture, painting, or music, used to create such art.

2. Something requiring highly developed techniques and skills: the fine art of teaching.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

fine arts - the study and creation of visual works of art

beaux arts

painting - creating a picture with paints; "he studied painting and sculpture for many years"

sculpture, carving - creating figures or designs in three dimensions

texture - the characteristic appearance of a surface having a tactile quality

architecture - the discipline dealing with the principles of design and construction and ornamentation of fine buildings; "architecture and eloquence are mixed arts whose end is sometimes beauty and sometimes use"

arts, humanistic discipline, humanities, liberal arts - studies intended to provide general knowledge and intellectual skills (rather than occupational or professional skills); "the college of arts and sciences"

reproduce - recreate a sound, image, idea, mood, atmosphere, etc.; "this DVD player reproduces the sound of the piano very well"; "He reproduced the feeling of sadness in the portrait"

classical, classic - of or relating to the most highly developed stage of an earlier civilisation and its culture; "classic Cinese pottery"

nonclassical - not classical

Translations

Bildende Kunst

bellas artes

Beaux-Arts

képzőművészet

arte

fine arts

npl the fine arts → (le) belle arti fpl

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

But there is a lightness about the feminine mind--a touch and go--music, the fine arts, that kind of thing--they should study those up to a certain point, women should; but in a light way, you know.

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Richard went and placed himself at the identical spot where he had stood when he bowed to the under-secretary for fine arts. M.

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The most thoroughgoing of all distinctions in literature, as in the other Fine Arts, is that between (1) Substance, the essential content and meaning of the work, and (2) Form, the manner in which it is expressed (including narrative structure, external style, in poetry verse-form, and many related matters).

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The man of the Fancy Repository and Brompton Emporium of Fine Arts (of whom she bought the screens, vainly hoping that he would repurchase them when ornamented by her hand) can hardly hide the sneer with which he examines these feeble works of art.

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Her father had given her the best masters in philosophy, medicine, history and the fine arts, and besides all this, her beauty excelled that of any girl in the kingdom of Persia.

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This appears in works both of the useful and the fine arts, if we employ the popular distinction of works according to their aim either at use or beauty.

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This commodious ottoman has since been removed, to the extreme regret of all weak-kneed lovers of the fine arts, but the gentleman in question had taken serene possession of its softest spot, and, with his head thrown back and his legs outstretched, was staring at Murillo's beautiful moon-borne Madonna in profound enjoyment of his posture.

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Melville was much interested in all matters relating to the fine arts, and devoted most of his leisure hours to the two subjects.

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Perhaps the reason I used to enjoy going to the Academy of Fine Arts in New York was because there were but a few hundred paintings in it, and it did not surfeit me to go through the list.

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And Sir Leicester is glad to repose in dignified contentment before the great fire in the library, condescendingly perusing the backs of his books or honouring the fine arts with a glance of approbation.

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He described his indifference to politics, his love of study, of the fine arts, of science, and of flowers.

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For love is the enemy of haste; it takes count of passing days, of men who pass away, of a fine art matured slowly in the course of years and doomed in a short time to pass away too, and be no more.

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