2. The class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria: "The works of art collectively, including paintings, sculptures, or drawings; such as, a museum of art; an art collection."
3. A field, genre, or category of what is attractive: "Dance is an art that Sara loves."
"The fine arts collectively, often excluding architecture."
4. Illustrative or decorative materials: "Do you have any art work to illustrate your web site?"5. The principles or methods governing any craft or branch of learning: "The art of baking and the art of selling."
6. Skill in conducting any human activity: "Trisha is a master at the art of conversation."
"Art is skilled workmanship, execution, or agency, as distinguished from nature."
7. A branch of learning or university study: "Joseph is studying one of the fine arts or the humanities; including music, philosophy, and literature."8. Etymology: from about 1225, "skill as a result of learning or practice", from Old French art, from Latin artem, ars, "art, skill, craft"; from base ar-, "fit together, join".
In Middle English, usually with the sense of "skill in scholarship and learning" (c.1305); especially, in the seven sciences, or liberal arts (divided into the trivium: grammar, logic, rhetoric; and the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy). This sense remains in Bachelor of Arts, etc.
The meaning, "human workmanship" (as opposed to nature) is from 1386. The sense of "cunning and trickery" was first attested about 1600. The meaning, "skill in creative arts" is first recorded 1620; especially, regarding painting, sculpture, etc., from 1668.
In fine arts, "those which appeal to the mind and the imagination" was first recorded in 1767. Arts and crafts, "decorative design and handcraft" was presented in the "Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society", founded in London, in 1888.