Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The conscious use of the imagination in the production of objects intended to be contemplated or appreciated as beautiful, as in the arrangement of forms, sounds, or words.
- noun Such activity in the visual or plastic arts.
- noun Products of this activity; imaginative works considered as a group.
- noun A field or category of art, such as music, ballet, or literature.
- noun A nonscientific branch of learning; one of the liberal arts.
- noun A skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation: synonym: skill.
- noun Artful devices, stratagems, and tricks.
- noun Artful contrivance; cunning.
- noun Printing Illustrative material, especially in contrast to text.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb archaic Second-person singular simple present tense indicative of
be . - noun this sense?) (
uncountable )Human effort toimitate ,supplement ,alter , orcounteract the work ofnature . - noun uncountable The
conscious production orarrangement ofsounds ,colours ,forms ,movements , or otherelements in a manner that affects the sense ofbeauty , specifically theproduction of thebeautiful in agraphic orplastic medium . - noun uncountable Activity intended to make something special.
- noun uncountable A re-creation of
reality according to the artist'smetaphysical value judgments . - noun uncountable The
study and theproduct of these processes. - noun uncountable
Aesthetic value . - noun uncountable, printing
Artwork . - noun countable A
field orcategory of art, such aspainting ,sculpture ,music ,ballet , orliterature . - noun countable A nonscientific branch of
learning ; one of theliberal arts . - noun countable
Skill that is attained bystudy ,practice , orobservation .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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ATTRIBUTION: HILTON KRAMER, The New York Times art critic, in the late 1960s when the term minimal art was in vogue.
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NATURE, the art whereby God hath made and governs the world, is by the art, of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal.
Introduction 1909
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Artistic and literary history is, therefore, _a historical work of art founded upon one or more works of art_.
Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic Benedetto Croce 1909
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Cellinis use of the word arte for the art or trade of goldsmiths corresponds to the art as used by English writers early in this century.
XIV 1909
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The only way in which art could disallow such criticism would be to protest its irresponsible infancy, and admit that it was a more or less amiable blatancy in individuals, and not _art_ at all.
The Life of Reason George Santayana 1907
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Every trade concerned with visible or audible objects or movements has also been an art; and every one of those great creative activities, for which, in their present isolation, we now reserve the name of _art_, has also been a craft; has been connected and replenished with life by the making of things which have a use, or by the doing of deeds which have a meaning.
Laurus Nobilis Chapters on Art and Life Vernon Lee 1895
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But, asks the reader, if every human activity resulting in visible or audible form is to be considered, at least potentially, as art; what becomes of _art_ as distinguished from _craft_, or rather what is the difference between what we all mean by art and what we all mean by
Laurus Nobilis Chapters on Art and Life Vernon Lee 1895
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Throughout the previous part of the world's history art and craft have been one and the same, at the utmost distinguishable only from a different point of view: _craft_ from the practical side, _art_ from the contemplative.
Laurus Nobilis Chapters on Art and Life Vernon Lee 1895
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The least of these illuminators, with his insignificant eyeless face, possesses at his fingers 'ends the maximum of dexterity in this art of decoration, light and wittily incongruous, which threatens to invade us in France, in this epoch of imitative decadence, and which has become the great resource of our manufacturers of cheap "_objects of art_."
Madame Chrysantheme Pierre Loti 1886
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'Nature, the art whereby God hath made and governs the world, is by the _art_ of man, as in many other things, in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal.
Mind and Motion and Monism George John Romanes 1871
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In the op art (short for optical art) movement she helped pioneer, paintings and viewers weren’t placed in a passive, one-way relationship, but in an undulating dialogue where the more you look the more you see, and the more you see the more you question what you’re seeing.
Bridget Riley at the Hayward Gallery exhibition review Eddy Frankel 2019
oroboros commented on the word art
A certain man was accosting people on the street and telling every other one, "Rather than just mindlessly attacking the arts, why not ask yourselves this:
Does what I see, hear and read that other men produce make me feel better or not?"...
One of the pedestrians so spoken to responded by saying,
"Why not instead ask if what others produce artistically makes you feel more like a human or not?"
And the man replied, "Would prove nothing."
--Jan Cox
November 18, 2007
sakhalinskii commented on the word art
"Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere." - G. K. Chesterton
July 30, 2008
lampbane commented on the word art
Watertown International Airport.
October 24, 2008
kewpid commented on the word art
“… when you do something and other people talk about it�?.
— Liza Ghorbani, ‘Doing Things You’re Not’ New York Times (7 November, 2008)
November 16, 2008
Telofy commented on the word art
"Of what exactly are you a professor?"
"Art."
"OK, of what exactly art thou a professor?"
May 8, 2009
yarb commented on the word art
Ha ha! That's a good 'un!
Do you write your own gags, telofy?
May 8, 2009
Telofy commented on the word art
That one is my own creation. :-)
The idea came to me when I read the sentences "What exactly are you a professor of, Mr. Logan?" – "Art."
I just wasn't so sure about the "of". Someone clumsily trying to ancientize his sentence would probably also try and avoid preposition stranding but a reordering of the words would distract from the nub of the joke, so I changed that from the beginning.
May 9, 2009