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Fine arts   /faɪn ɑrts/   Listen
noun
Art  n.  
1.
The employment of means to accomplish some desired end; the adaptation of things in the natural world to the uses of life; the application of knowledge or power to practical purposes. "Blest with each grace of nature and of art."
2.
A system of rules serving to facilitate the performance of certain actions; a system of principles and rules for attaining a desired end; method of doing well some special work; often contradistinguished from science or speculative principles; as, the art of building or engraving; the art of war; the art of navigation. "Science is systematized knowledge... Art is knowledge made efficient by skill."
3.
The systematic application of knowledge or skill in effecting a desired result. Also, an occupation or business requiring such knowledge or skill. "The fishermen can't employ their art with so much success in so troubled a sea."
4.
The application of skill to the production of the beautiful by imitation or design, or an occupation in which skill is so employed, as in painting and sculpture; one of the fine arts; as, he prefers art to literature.
5.
pl. Those branches of learning which are taught in the academical course of colleges; as, master of arts. "In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts." "Four years spent in the arts (as they are called in colleges) is, perhaps, laying too laborious a foundation."
6.
Learning; study; applied knowledge, science, or letters. (Archaic) "So vast is art, so narrow human wit."
7.
Skill, dexterity, or the power of performing certain actions, acquired by experience, study, or observation; knack; as, a man has the art of managing his business to advantage.
8.
Skillful plan; device. "They employed every art to soothe... the discontented warriors."
9.
Cunning; artifice; craft. "Madam, I swear I use no art at all." "Animals practice art when opposed to their superiors in strength."
10.
The black art; magic. (Obs.)
Art and part (Scots Law), share or concern by aiding and abetting a criminal in the perpetration of a crime, whether by advice or by assistance in the execution; complicity. Note: The arts are divided into various classes. The useful arts, The mechanical arts, or The industrial arts are those in which the hands and body are more concerned than the mind; as in making clothes and utensils. These are called trades. The fine arts are those which have primarily to do with imagination and taste, and are applied to the production of what is beautiful. They include poetry, music, painting, engraving, sculpture, and architecture; but the term is often confined to painting, sculpture, and architecture. The liberal arts (artes liberales, the higher arts, which, among the Romans, only freemen were permitted to pursue) were, in the Middle Ages, these seven branches of learning, grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. In modern times the liberal arts include the sciences, philosophy, history, etc., which compose the course of academical or collegiate education. Hence, degrees in the arts; master and bachelor of arts. "In America, literature and the elegant arts must grow up side by side with the coarser plants of daily necessity."
Synonyms: Science; literature; aptitude; readiness; skill; dexterity; adroitness; contrivance; profession; business; trade; calling; cunning; artifice; duplicity. See Science.


adjective
fine  adj.  (compar. finer; superl. finest)  
1.
Finished; brought to perfection; refined; hence, free from impurity; excellent; superior; elegant; worthy of admiration; accomplished; beautiful. "The gain thereof (is better) than fine gold." "A cup of wine that's brisk and fine." "Not only the finest gentleman of his time, but one of the finest scholars." "To soothe the sick bed of so fine a being (Keats)."
2.
Aiming at show or effect; loaded with ornament; overdressed or overdecorated; showy. "He gratified them with occasional... fine writing."
3.
Nice; delicate; subtle; exquisite; artful; skillful; dexterous. "The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!" "The nicest and most delicate touches of satire consist in fine raillery." "He has as fine a hand at picking a pocket as a woman."
4.
Not coarse, gross, or heavy; as:
(a)
Not gross; subtile; thin; tenous. "The eye standeth in the finer medium and the object in the grosser."
(b)
Not coarse; comminuted; in small particles; as, fine sand or flour.
(c)
Not thick or heavy; slender; filmy; as, a fine thread.
(d)
Thin; attenuate; keen; as, a fine edge.
(e)
Made of fine materials; light; delicate; as, fine linen or silk.
5.
Having (such) a proportion of pure metal in its composition; as, coins nine tenths fine.
6.
(Used ironically.) "Ye have made a fine hand, fellows." Note: Fine is often compounded with participles and adjectives, modifying them adverbially; a, fine-drawn, fine-featured, fine-grained, fine-spoken, fine-spun, etc.
Fine arch (Glass Making), the smaller fritting furnace of a glasshouse.
Fine arts. See the Note under Art.
Fine cut, fine cut tobacco; a kind of chewing tobacco cut up into shreds.
Fine goods, woven fabrics of fine texture and quality.
Fine stuff, lime, or a mixture of lime, plaster, etc., used as material for the finishing coat in plastering.
To sail fine (Naut.), to sail as close to the wind as possible.
Synonyms: Fine, Beautiful. When used as a word of praise, fine (being opposed to coarse) denotes no "ordinary thing of its kind." It is not as strong as beautiful, in reference to the single attribute implied in the latter term; but when we speak of a fine woman, we include a greater variety of particulars, viz., all the qualities which become a woman, breeding, sentiment, tact, etc. The term is equally comprehensive when we speak of a fine garden, landscape, horse, poem, etc.; and, though applied to a great variety of objects, the word has still a very definite sense, denoting a high degree of characteristic excellence.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Fine arts" Quotes from Famous Books



... press, or discovered his religious, economic, and moral convictions, or any of the devices which supply him with meat and raiment or any of the sources of such pleasure as he may derive from literature or the fine arts? In short, civilization is little else than getting something for nothing. Like other vested interests, it is "the legitimate right to something for nothing".[32] How much execrable reasoning and how ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... extended also to the field of the fine arts. The Tokugawa Bakufu had hitherto encouraged the Kano School only whereas the Tosa Academy was patronized by the Court at Kyoto. This partiality was corrected by Tsunayoshi., He invited Sumiyoshi Gukei—also called Hirozumi—the most distinguished ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... So terrible a set of effects must have a cause. History shows that the cause here is to be found in the progress of sciences and arts. Egypt, once so mighty, becomes the mother of philosophy and the fine arts; straightway behold its conquest by Cambyses, by Greeks, by Romans, by Arabs, finally by Turks. Greece twice conquered Asia, once before Troy, once in its own homes; then came in fatal sequence ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... ambassador at Rome, and put his horses and servants at her disposal. She renewed her acquaintance with the celebrated Duchess of Devonshire, (Lady Elizabeth Foster,) whose career was quite as singular as her own, while it was more open to reproach. The Duchess was a liberal patron of the fine arts, and the devoted friend of Cardinal Gonsalvi, from the shock of whose death she never recovered. Madame Recamier also found at Rome the Duchess of Saint-Leu, whom she had slightly known when she was Queen of Holland. For political reasons it was unwise for them to visit openly, so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that rapid touch which seems like magic, while I labour and blotch, and make this too heavy, and that too light, and produce at last a base caricature. I must stick to the flageolet, for music is the only one of the fine arts ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott


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