FINE ARTS is the generic term for those arts intended primarily to affect the emotions, such as sculpture, painting, music, etc., as dis tinguished from the useful arts which serve the physical needs of life. Art in general may be defined as the exercise of human activity for the accomplishment of a predetermined end; or more specifically, an exercise of the creative faculty or imagination according to rules deter mined by experience or laid down by science. (See Airr). The useful arts are those whose works are intended to serve some practical end or material need of man — that is, for a pur pose external to themselves. The fine arts are, on the other hand, those whose products are created to be contemplated or enjoyed, that is for a purpose which ends in the works them selves. A picture is painted for its own sake, not to be used as an instrument of some activ ity, but to be looked at; the emotions it arouses terminate, as it were, in the picture, which is itself the object of interest: it is a work of fine art. The same is true of a sym phony or of a song, of a poem or of a drama, of a statue or of a noble building. Each is a work of fine art; apart from any practical or utilitarian end, each appeals to the esthetic emotions, and these emotions, thus aroused, con stantly direct the attention to the work which called them into action. In this sense the work exists for and by itself. There is a broad field to which we may assign all that large class of works which, although primarily intended for use, are at the same time objects of beauty. All rich and beautiful work in furniture, pot tery, metal-work textile fabrics, bookbindings, vases and the like, upon which the designer and craftsman have bestowed their efforts in order to make them appeal to the sense of beauty in the beholder, are so far works of fine art. There is no distinctive name for these arts which thus combine the character of useful art and fine art. They may be called the industrial arts, but this term is quite as often used to designate the useful arts gener ally, while the classification of the decorative arts includes various arts associated with archi tecture which, since the purpose of their prod ucts terminates in themselves, or in the struc tures of which they are a part, are properly classed among the fine arts: such are mosaic and stained glass. Architecture stands on the
borderland of both domains, being the noblest of the useful arts, and yet, in all those elements in which the architect seeks after pure beauty as distinguished from mere utility or fitness, entering into the field of the fine arts, and moning painting and sculpture to serve it as sister arts. Those, then, of the decorative arts which are applied to the beautifying of useful objects, may properly be called the industrial decorative arts. (See IsTimm DEcoaATIoN). Under this classification would be included all decorative weaving, textile work and basketry; decorative metal-work in iron and bronze, silver and gold, etc., applied to the adornment of implements or furniture; decorative woodwork in furniture, including wood inlay; and all deco rativepottery and ceramics. When, however, any of these arts is applied to the decoration of permanent or immovable structures instead of movable objects, they become ancillary to architecture, and are often called ((the allied arts° or accessory arts,s along with mosaic, ornamental carving and stained glass.
Literature as a fine art comprises all those kinds of writing in which beauty of language and of literary form is aimed at, taking on often an importance equal to that of the substance of the writing, as in much lyric poetry. Poetry, elo quence or oratory and the drama, and some tunes fiction, belong in the domain of literary fine art. But inasmuch as all writing is con ceived primarily as a means of information and of communicating ideas, and is addressed to the intellect quite as much as to the esthetic emotions, literature is always classed apart from the other fine arts. See BELLES-LETTRES.