beaux artsn.
/bəʊz ˈɑː/ The fine arts. Also used elliptically for the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris; frequently attributive, of the standards of architecture and art maintained by the École in France in the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth century and imitated elsewhere, characterized by the influence of older styles and a reliance on decorative and period design.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > [noun]
arts of imitation1638
design1638
art1668
fine arts1686
imitative arts1753
designation1796
fine art1804
beaux arts1821
visual art1857
machine art1945
picturedom1945
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > period, movement, or school of art > late 19th and 20th centuries > [adjective] > others
all'antica1605
neo-Gothic1878
Barbizon1890
chinoiserie1909
neoprimitive1922
omega1922
Suprematist1922
beaux arts1924
ashcan1934
vitalistic1937
Euston Road1941
precisionist1943
abstract impressionist1950
abstract-concrete1955
neo-expressionist1957
metaphysical1958
structurist1958
auto-destructive1959
Rayonist1968
post-minimal1971
assemblagist1977
Neo-Geo1987
1821 M. Wilmot Jrnl. 26 Oct. in More Lett. (1935) 134 Went to the top of the tower to see the view of all Venice... Next the Academy of beaux arts.
1833 J. S. Mill Let. 5 Sept. in Wks. (1963) XII. 177 The beaux-arts (what beaux-arts!) which had been the glory of the siècle de Louis 14.
1854 H. D. Thoreau Walden 52 So are made the belles-lettres and the beaux-arts and their professors.
1924 Arts & Decoration July 10/1 The French or Beaux Arts method of developing the finished drawing, or ‘project’ on a competition is followed by the Institute [sc. Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, N.Y.].
1931 tr. Willy & Colette's Claudine in Paris xi. 17 He's at the Beaux Arts and he's going to be a great artist.
1945 Encycl. Brit. II. 273/1 The largest school of architecture in England is that of the Architectural Association and the next largest that of Liverpool university. Both these schools show definite tendencies away from the Beaux Arts influence and towards contemporary architecture, period design having been dropped almost entirely.
1956 K. Clark Nude ix. 351 The classic nude with its exhausted beaux-arts associations.
1961 Listener 10 Aug. 201/2 He [sc. the architect] has failed to make proper use of technology, and is perpetuating beaux arts attitudes to design.
1967 E. Wymark As Good as Gold xv. 219 I left the Beaux Arts and went back to New York.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1972; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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n.1821