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View synonyms for fine art

fine art

[ fahyn ahrt ]

noun

  1. a visual art considered to have been created primarily for aesthetic purposes and judged for its beauty and meaningfulness, specifically, painting, sculpture, drawing, watercolor, graphics, and architecture. Compare commercial art.


fine art

noun

  1. art produced chiefly for its aesthetic value, as opposed to applied art
  2. Also calledbeaux arts often plural any of the fields in which such art is produced, such as painting, sculpture, and engraving
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Word History and Origins

Origin of fine art1

First recorded in 1760–70
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Idioms and Phrases

Something requiring highly developed techniques and skills, as in He's turned lying into a fine art , or The contractor excels in the fine art of demolition . This term alludes to the fine arts , such as music, painting, and sculpture, which require both skill and talent. It is now often used to describe anything that takes skill to do. [First half of 1800s]
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Example Sentences

The exhibit also includes examples of designers borrowing from fine art, as Yves Saint Laurent did with his Mondrian dress.

Situated in hipster Hackney, the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History opens to the public on Wednesday.

The figure will be high but we could lend our time and sign a nondisclosure agreement with R.B. fine art.

So why is one considered fine art and the other the harmless pastime of a hobbyist?

You don't have to fly to Paris or London to see fine art—we have plenty right in our own backyard.

The chief buildings are the hydropathic and the Macfarlane museum of fine art and natural history.

Shiftlessness is a fine art with them, they've carried it so far.

If I am to make any kind of figure in this new rôle of fine-art speculator (so my thoughts continued) I must control my feelings.

He judged those, as we have seen, by the rules of the fine art of literature, and found them rubbish.

In its most developed stage every fine art is bound still to play upon the same sensibilities.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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