3–; also 3–4 ars, arz, 4–7 arte. Sc. 6–7 airt. [a. OF. art:—L. artem, prob. f. ar- to fit. The OF. nom. sing. ars:—L. ars, and pl. ars:—L. artes, were also in early Eng. use, but without distinction of case.]
I. Skill; its display or application. Sing. art (abstractly); no plural.
1. gen. Skill in doing anything as the result of knowledge and practice.
c. 1225. St. Margarete, 194. Telle me of ȝoure art … Whi werrie ȝe cristene men.
c. 1340. Richard Rolle of Hampole, Prick of Conscience, 7434. Couth never telle, bi clergy, ne arte … þe thowsand parte.
1539. Taverner, Erasm. Prov. (1552), 23. Arte or cunninge euerye countrey nourysheth. Yt is to saye, cunnynge men, & such as haue anye facultie or science, whether so euer they goo, shall lacke no lyuynge.
1611. Bible, Acts xvii. 29. Golde, or siluer, or stone grauen by arte, and mans deuice.
1663. Butler, Hud., I. i. 87. Else when with greatest art he spoke, You’d think he talk’d like other folk.
1718. Pope, Iliad, III. 285. The copious accents fall with easy art.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 129. The potato, a root which can be cultivated with scarcely any art.
2. Human skill as an agent, human workmanship. Opposed to nature.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Sqrs. T., 189. Nature ne Art ne koude hym nat amende.
1573. G. Harvey, Common-pl. Bk. (1884), 87. Nature herself is changeable … and arte, after a sorte her ape, conformith herself to the like mutabilitye.
1592. Shaks., Rom. & Jul., II. iv. 94. Romeo: now art thou what thou art, by Art as well as by Nature.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., I. § 16. Now nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature: they being both the servants of his providence. Art is the perfecttion of Nature … Nature hath made one World, and Art another. In briefe, all things are artificiall, for Nature is the Art of God.
1699. Dryden, Cock & Fox, 452. Art may err, but nature cannot miss.
1742. Collins, Ode to Pity, 23. Youth’s soft notes unspoil’d by art.
1839. Longf., Hyperion, III. v. (1865), 165. Nature is a revelation of God; Art, a revelation of man … Art pre-exists in Nature, and Nature is reproduced in Art.
† b. Artifice, artificial expedient. (Cf. 12.) Obs.
1667. Oldenburg, in Phil. Trans., II. 415. That some of the Natives there can stay under Water half an hour without any art.
3. The learning of the schools; see 7. † a. spec. The trivium, or one of its subjects, grammar, logic, rhetoric; dialectics. Obs.
c. 1305. St. Edmund, 220, in E. E. P. (1862), 77. Of art he radde six ȝer: contynuelliche ynouȝ, & siþþe for beo more profound: to arsmetrike he drouȝ.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron., 336 (R.). Of arte he had the maistrie.
c. 1430. Freemasonry, 567. Gramer forsothe ys the rote … But art passeth yn hys degre, As the fryte does the rote of the tre.
1573. G. Harvey, Common-pl. Bk. (1884), 76. It makith no matter howe a man wrytith untoe his frends … Præceptes of arte and stile and decorum … ar to be reservid for an other place.
b. gen. Scholarship, learning, science. arch.
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., IV. ii. 113. Where all those pleasures liue, that Art would comprehend.
1675. R. Barclay, Apol. Quakers, ii. § 15. 64. A Mathematician can infallibly know, by the Rules of Art, that the three Angles of a right Triangle, are equal to two right Angles.
1709. Pope, Ess. Crit., 61. So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
c. 1840. Longf., Psalm of Life. Art is long, and time is fleeting.
c. Words or terms of art: words peculiar to, or having a peculiar use in, a particular art or pursuit; technical terms.
1628. Coke, On Litt., Pref. The Termes and Words of Art.
1701. Swift, Cont. Nobles, etc. Wks. 1755, II. I. 22. By which he brought many of them, as the term of art was then, to Philippize.
1754. Edwards, Freed. Will, I. § 3. 15. If we use the Words, as Terms of Art, in another sense.
1807. Morris & Kendrick (title), Explanation of the Terms of Art in Anatomy.
1816. Scott, Antiq. (1852), 256. A few thumping blustering terms of art.
† 4. spec. Skill in applying the principles of a special science; technical or professional skill. Obs.
c. 1300. K. Alis., 737. Thyn erbes failith and thyn art!
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. XVIII. 96. Astronomyens al day · in here art faillen.
1605. Shaks., Macb., IV. i. 101. Tell me, if your Art Can tell so much.
1656. H. Phillips, Purch. Patt. (1676), 31. Without sufficient knowledge in point of art.
1677. Moxon, Mech. Exerc. (1703), 253. Work, in which they have taken a great deal of pains, and used a great deal of Art.
5. The application of skill to subjects of taste, as poetry, music, dancing, the drama, oratory, literary composition, and the like; esp. in mod. use: Skill displaying itself in perfection of workmanship, perfection of execution as an object in itself.
1620. J. Taylor, in Shaks. C. Praise, 133. Spencer and Shakespeare did in art excell.
1675. Traherne, Chr. Ethics, iii. 25. Art … more frequently appears in fiddling and dancing, then in noble deeds.
1711. Shaftesb., Charac. (1737), I. 244. Remarking what this mighty Genius and Judg of Art declares concerning tragedy.
1840. H. Rogers, Ess., II. v. 259. It is just such art as this that we ask of the preacher … that he shall take diligent heed to do what he has to do as well as he can.
1867. Mill, Inaug. Add. St. Andrews, 46. If I were to define Art, I should be inclined to call it the endeavour after perfection in execution.
1872. Swinburne, Ess. & Stud. (1875), 41. The well-known formula of art for art’s sake … has, like other doctrines, a true side to it, and an untrue.
1879. M. Arnold, Guide Eng. Lit., in Mixed Ess., 193. We mean by art, not merely an aim to please, but also a law of pure and flawless workmanship.
6. The application of skill to the arts of imitation and design, Painting, Engraving, Sculpture, Architecture; the cultivation of these in its principles, practice and results; the skilful production of the beautiful in visible forms.
This is the most usual modern sense of art, when used without any qualification. It does not occur in any English Dictionary before 1880, and seems to have been chiefly used by painters and writers on painting, until the present century.
1668. J. E[velyn] (title), An Idea of the Perfection of Painting demonstrated from the Principles of Art.
a. 1700. Dryden, To Kneller. From hence the rudiments of art began, A coal or chalk first imitated man.
c. 1777. J. Barry, in Cunningham, Brit. Painters, II. 96. A solid manly taste for real art, in place of our contemptible passion for daubing.
1801. Fuseli, Lect. Art, i. 8. Greek Art had her infancy.
1834. Prospectus of Edin. Art Union. It is proposed to form an Association for the purchase of works of art.
1848. Mrs. Jameson (title), Sacred and Legendary Art.
1856. Ruskin, Mod. Paint., III. IV. iii. § 12, note. High art differs from low art in possessing an excess of beauty in addition to its truth, not in possessing excess of beauty inconsistent with truth.
1869. Gladstone, Juv. Mundi, xv. § 2. 520. By the term Art, I understand the production of beauty in material forms palpable; whether associated with industrial purposes or not.
1876. Humphrey, Coin Coll. Man., i. 4. The coins of Greece and Rome form in themselves a complete history of Art.
II. Anything wherein skill may be attained or displayed. Sing. an art; pl. arts.
7. chiefly in pl. Certain branches of learning which are of the nature of intellectual instruments or apparatus for more advanced studies, or for the work of life; their main principles having been already investigated and established, they are in the position of subjects requiring only to be acquired and practised. Applied in the Middle Ages to ‘the trivium and quadrivium, a course of seven sciences, introduced in the sixth century … the trivium contained grammar, logic, and rhetoric; the quadrivium arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy’ (Hallam); called also the free or liberal arts. Hence the ‘faculty’ of arts, and arts ‘curriculum,’ embracing the portions of these, with subsequent additions and alterations, still studied at the Universities, and the degrees of ‘Bachelor’ and ‘Master of Arts’ conferred upon students who attain to a prescribed standard of proficiency in these branches of knowledge, or, as it is called, ‘graduate in arts.’
c. 1300. K. Alis., 665. The sevethen maister taught his pars, And the wit of the seoven ars.
c. 1305. St. Kath., 4, in E. E. P. (1862), 90. Þere nas non of þe soue artz þat heo gret clerk of nas.
c. 1320. Seuyn Sages (W.), 182. And eke alle the seven ars.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. X. 150. He hath wedded a wyf … Is sybbe to þe seuene artz.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, IV. 1497. Cassandra … enfourmet was faire of þe fre artis.
c. 1425. Wyntoun, Cron., VIII. iv. 9. Mayster of Art.
1503. Hawes, Examp. Virtue, vii. 103. I am grounde of the artes seuen.
1557. N. T. (Genev.), Epist., iiij. They … beat their wittes night and daie in the artes liberall or other sciences.
1579. Fulke, Refut. Rastel, 751. He being a Master in all the seuen liberall Arts, is not so ignorant in grammer.
1594. Carew, Huarte’s Exam. Wits (1616), 7. Moreouer, mans life is very short, and the arts long and toilsome.
1608. Shaks., Per., II. iii. 82. My education been in arts and arms.
1795. Gibbon, Autobiog., 29. How many [professors] are stationed to the three faculties, and how many are left for the liberal arts?
1794. Reid, Acc. Univ. Glasgow, Wks. II. 723/1. Four [Faculties] … Theology, Canon Law, Civil Law, and the Arts…. The Arts, under which was comprehended logic, physics, and morals, were considered as a necessary introduction to the learned professions. Ibid., 724/1. In some universities, Masters of Arts are called Doctors of Philosophy. Ibid., 725/2. The dean conferred the degree of Bachelor of Arts.
1868. M. Pattison, Academ. Org., § 5. 191. The first seven years … were employed on studies, which varying in their nature in various periods of the university history went under the common name of ‘Arts.’
† b. sing. Any one of the above-mentioned subjects.
c. 1300. K. Alis., 72. Barounes … That this ars [astrology] wel undurstode … Wis in this ars, and malicious.
c. 1450. Merlin, v. 86. An arte that is cleped astronomye.
8. A practical application of any science; a body or system of rules serving to facilitate the carrying out of certain principles. In this sense often contrasted with science.
1489. Caxton, Faytes of Armes, I. i. 2. Emonge thother noble artes and sciences.
c. 1538. Starkey, England, II. i. 160. Scholes in euery Arte, syence and craft.
1588. Fraunce, Lawiers Log., I. i. 1 b. An art is a methodicall disposition of true and coherent preceptes, for the more easie perceiving and better remembring of the same.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., I. i. 51. So that the Arte and Practique part of Life must be the Mistresse to this Theorique.
1724. Watts, Logic, II. ii. § 9. This is the most remarkable distinction between an art and a science, viz. the one refers chiefly to practice, the other to speculation.
1825. Bentham, Ration. Reward, 204. Correspondent … to every art, there is at least one branch of science; correspondent to every branch of science, there is at least one branch of art.
1852. McCulloch, Dict. Comm., 449. Agriculture is little known as a science in any part of America, and but imperfectly understood as an art.
1870. Jevons, Elem. Logic, i. 7. A science teaches us to know and an art to do.
9. esp. An industrial pursuit or employment of a skilled nature; a craft, business, profession.
1393. Gower, Conf., III. 142. Artificers whiche vsen craftes and mestiers, Whose art is cleped mechanique.
1557. Seager, Sch. Vertue, in Babees Bk., 353. Ye seruauntes, applie your busines and arte.
1660. Stanley, Hist. Philos., 165. Arts of three kinds. The first diggeth out Metals, and fells Wood.
1705. Addison, Italy, 6. The Fisher-men can’t employ their Art with so much success in so troubled a Sea.
1745. De Foe, Eng. Tradesm., I. i. 8. To be taught the art and mystery which his master engages to learn him.
1851. D. Wilson, Preh. Ann. (1863), I. II. ii. 358. Aboriginal learners slowly acquiring the new art.
b. A guild, or company of craftsmen. Cf. Florio: ‘Arte … a whole company of any trade in any city or corporation town.’
1832. Sismondi, Ital. Rep., viii. 184. These men, belonging to the woollen art.
1872. Yeats, Growth Comm., 107. The industry of the free republic was controlled by guilds or arts.
10. A pursuit or occupation in which skill is directed towards the gratification of taste or production of what is beautiful. Hence The Arts: (specifically) = the Fine Arts; see next. (Cf. 5, 6.)
1597. [see 11 b].
1769. Sir J. Reynolds, Disc., i. Wks. 1870, I. 306. There is a general desire among our Nobility to be distinguished as lovers and judges of the Arts. Ibid. (1778), vii. I. 426. All arts having the same general end, which is to please.
1827. Continental Advent., li. III. 243. The true Italian feeling for the Arts.
1842. Parker, Baptistery, Pref. xii. The sister Art that speaks in stone.
1884. Punch, 3 May, 210/2. You will speak only of music, extolling this Art above all others.
11. In prec. senses, but particularized:—
a. by an adjective, as magic art (or the black art), military art, the healing art. Industrial, mechanical, useful arts: those in which the hands and body are more concerned than the mind. Fine arts: those in which the mind and imagination are chiefly concerned.
1393. Gower, Conf., III. 80. Thexperience Of art magique.
1611. Bible, Wisd., xvii. 7. The illusions of arte Magicke.
1667. Moxon, Mech. Exerc. (1703), 1. Smithing is an Art-Manual.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 178. My song to flowery Gardens might extend, To teach the Vegetable Arts.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 5, ¶ 4. How an Amazon should be versed in the Black Art.
1734. trans. Rollin’s Rom. Hist. (1827), III. 96. A treatise … upon the art military.
1767. Fordyce, Serm. Yng. Wom., I. vi. 250. They … wanted instruction in the principles of the Fine Arts.
1785. Reid, Int. Powers, VI. vi. The fine arts are very properly called the arts of taste.
1854. Ruskin, Two Paths, ii. Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.
1884. Gladstone, Sp. in Parl., 28 April. The Reform Bill of 1866 was defeated by obstruction, though at that period the art of obstruction was not so much of a fine art as it was now.
Mod. A professor of the healing art.
b. by a genitive or genitive phrase, as ‘the painter’s art,’ ‘the art of painting.’
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., 189. Set with magykes arte.
1560. Bible (Genev.), 2 Chron. xvi. 14. Spices made by the arte [Wyclif, Tindale, craft] of the Apoticarie. Ibid. (1611). Apothecaries arte.
1597. Morley, Introd. Mus., 181. The arte of dauncing being come to that perfection.
1691. T. H[ale], Acc. New Invent., 29. The art of making gold.
1774. T. Jefferson, Autobiog., Wks. 1859, I. App. 141. The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.
1821. Joanna Baillie, Metr. Leg., Wallace, lxiii. 6. The soldier’s dextrous art.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 301. The rapid improvement, both of the art of war and of the art of navigation.
1875. Fortnum, Maiolica, iii. 34. To have encouraged the potter’s art.
12. An acquired faculty of any kind; a power of doing anything wherein skill is attainable by study and practice; a knack.
1637. Rutherford, Lett., 120 (1862), I. 299. I thought the guiding of grace had been no art. I thought it wd come of will.
1781. Cowper, Convers., 4. Conversation … may be esteemed a gift, and not an art.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 201. The art of saying things well is useless to a man who has nothing to say.
1876. Hamerton, Intell. Life, III. iii. 91. The delicate art of verbal selection.
III. Skilful, crafty or artificial conduct.
13. Studied conduct or action, especially such as seeks to attain its ends by artificial, indirect or covert means; address; cunning, artfulness.
c. 1600. Shaks., Sonn., 139. Use power with power and slay me not by art … What need’st thou wound with cunning when thy might Is more [etc.].
1738. Pope, Epil. Sat., i. 32. Smile without Art, and win without a Bribe.
a. 1762. Lady Montague, Lett., lxxiv. 122. I am incapable of art.
1801. Mar. Edgeworth, Belinda, I. xvi. 300. Her art and falsehood operated against her own views.
14. An artifice, contrivance, stratagem, wile, trick, cunning device. Chiefly in pl.
1597. Shaks., Lover’s Compl., 295. His passion, but an art of craft, Even there resolved my reason into tears.
1625. Bacon, Simul., Ess. (Arb.), 506. Attributing Arts or Policy to Augustus, and Dissimulation to Tiberius.
1681. Dryden, Abs. & Achit., I. 402. The next successor … My Arts have made obnoxious to the State.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 510, ¶ 4. All the little arts imaginable are used to soften a man’s heart.
1769. Robertson, Chas. V., V. I. 172. All the arts of address and policy.
1813. Miss Austen, Pride & Prej. (1833), 34. The arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 536. No art was spared which could draw Monmouth from retreat.
IV. Phrases.
15. Art-of-memory: an old game at cards. (Described in the Compleat Gamester (1709), 101.)
1674. Cotton, Compl. Gamester (1680), 99. This Art of Memory is a sport at which men may play for money, but it is most commonly the way to play the drunkard.
16. Art and Part (Sc. Law and gen.): a. orig. in such expressions as to be concerned in (either) by art or part, either by art in contriving it, or by the part taken in actually executing it; whence, To have art or (and) part in: to have a share in, either by contrivance or participation; b. (corruptly) To be art or part in (be for have, or perh. for ‘to be of art or part in’): to be concerned either in the contrivance or the execution of; To be art and part in: to be accessary both by contrivance and participation, often used loosely, as a mere jingling phrase for ‘accessary, participating, sharing’ (the sense of art being merged in that of part).
a. c. 1425. Wyntoun, Cron., VII. ix. 539. All þa Ðat (oþir) be art or part or swike Gert bryn … þis erle Patryke.
1582–8. Hist. James VI. (1804), 60. Thame that has bein foirfaltit for airt and pairt of the slauchter.
1609. Skene, Reg. Maj., 118. Thou thy selfe full airt had, and parte in harming and skaithing of me.
a. 1670. Hacket, Abp. Williams, II. (1693), 86 (D.). The old man, which is corrupt, Eph. 4. 22. who had Art and Part, as the Scottish Indictment runs, in all our Bishops Persecutions.
1767. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual., i. 6 (D.). He had neither art nor part in this frightful discomfiture.
1864. Spectator, 529. He has no further art or part in the matter.
b. 1515. Acts Jas. V. (1597), § 2. He salbe halden airt & partaker of his evill deedis.
1536. Bellenden, Cron. Scot., XII. viii. (Jam.). Gif evir I wes othir art or part of Alarudis slauchter.
1691. Blount, Law Dict., Art and Part is a Term used in Scotland and the North of England. When one is charged with a Crime they say, He was Art and Part in committing the same … He was both a contriver, and acted his part in it.
1753. Stewart’s Trial, 283. Find unanimously, the pannel James Stewart guilty, art and part, of the murder of Colin Campbell.
c. 1876. Nat. Encycl., I. 105. The law of Scotland makes no distinction between the accessory to any crime (called art and part) and the principal.
1878. Tennyson, Q. Mary, III. iv. You are art and part with us In purging heresy.
V. Comb.; chiefly attrib. from sense 6, as art-critic, -furniture, -manufacture, -product, -school, -teacher, etc.; or instrumental, as art-spun, etc. Art-educate vb., to educate in the arts of design; art-union, a union of persons for the purpose of promoting art (in sense 6), chiefly by purchasing the works of artists, and distributing them among their members, which is usually done by lottery.
1879. Hibbs, in Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 263/2. As desirous of improving the style of their work as any art-critic could possibly wish them to be.
1880. Poynter, Lect. Art, I. 16. It has never been thought worth while to art-educate the workman.
1870. Athenæum, 21 May, 681. Little more than a pretty piece of art-furniture.
1857. Ruskin, Pol. Econ. Art, 30. A certain quantity of Art-intellect is born annually in every nation.
1862. Thornbury, Turner, I. 13. The very starting-point of the boy’s art life.
1876. Gladstone, Relig. Th., in Contemp. Rev., June, 23. The splendid and elaborate art-life of the people.
1872. Ruskin, Eagle’s Nest, i. § 3. The least part of the work of any sound art-teacher must be his talking. Ibid. (1857), Pol. Econ. Art, i. 41. The picture which most truly deserves the name of an art-treasure.
1837. (title) Art Union of Scotland.
1868. Chambers, Encycl., I. 446. Scotland preceded England in the establishment of Art Unions.
1880. Poynter, Lect. Art, I. 16. The Art-workmen who have studied in our schools of design.
