Beauty can be expressed in many ways, as many as there are people in this world. What is beautiful for one person may be something really inharmonious for another.

Whatever may be understood as something worthy of admiration, the truth is that the fine arts have become the source of creation of many visions of the world .

But… what are the fine arts? What characterizes them? These questions have been asked over the years and have marked the evolution of what has been understood as something truly artistic. Let’s go deeper into what the fine arts are and see which ones are considered as such today.

What are the fine arts?

Currently, there are seven forms of artistic realization or representation of what is considered beautiful or artistic . They are considered pure forms of art, and employ different techniques, materials and procedures.

Not only are the fine arts different from each other, but each of them has different views of what beauty is, with different trends depending on the country and the historical moment.

Humanity’s artistic gifts have made it possible to develop lasting elements that have transcended the passage of time, allowing us to understand the culture of yesteryear and what vision various ethnic groups had of the world in which they lived. The fine arts have been considered those artistic products that occupied a central place in what was understood as high culture. Since the idea of the fine arts was generated, 6 have been included in this classification: painting, music, sculpture, architecture, literature and dance. Later, in the 20th century, cinematography was added.

The debate on whether these are really all the fine arts that exist or whether others, such as theatre or photography, should be included is still active. Furthermore, it is worth noting the fact that the classification has always been based on what was understood as high culture in the West , without taking into account what was seen in other regions of the world where the ethnic differences with respect to Europe are very noticeable.

History of the concept

Since ancient times, classical civilizations such as Greece and Rome studied artistic representation, being remarkable the philosopher Aristotle. The Greeks contemplated the artistic in two opposable categories: the superior arts and the minor arts .

The higher arts were considered to be the most powerful and transcendental, and those that impressed the senses considered to be the highest – sight and hearing – fell into this category.
On the other hand, the lesser arts were more simple and vulgar, and were enjoyed through the less transcendental senses according to Greek vision, which were touch, smell and taste. Perfumery and gastronomy would fall into this category, to give a few examples.

Based on the Greek vision, several centuries later, during the 18th century, the Frenchman Charles Batteux (1713-1780) tried to classify the fine arts , publishing in 1746 his work Les Beaux-Arts reduits à un même principe (“The fine arts reduced to a single principle”). Here he tried to bring together the artistic practices that were valued at the time, taking into account what was meant by beauty, good taste or style. Within this first classification six were considered as fine arts: dance, sculpture, painting, poetry, music and eloquence.

Given the mentality of the time, in this first classification of what the fine arts were, arts such as oratory or declamation were included, but were later set aside.

What are the fine arts?

Here you will find a summary of what the fine arts are, with their properties as forms of artistic expression.

1. Architecture

Architecture is a beautiful art in which ingenuity and aesthetic delicacy are used to create buildings that are harmonious with the rest of the buildings nearby, as well as being striking over time.
This art is possibly one of the most functional, given that not only are well-constructed buildings a delight to the eye, but they are also places where one can live.

The Pantheon in Rome, the pyramids in Egypt, Stonehenge in the United Kingdom, Himeji Castle in Japan or the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona are some examples of international architectural works.

2. Dance

Dance is the art where it is about communicating beauty through body expression, performing rhythmic movements , although these movements do not necessarily have to be accompanied by music.

Some of the most outstanding dance works have been those of Domenico da Piacenza, Marius Petipa, Agrippina Vagánova or Hanya Holm.

3. Literature

Literature is the art that uses words to create. This art allows us to transmit emotions, experiences and opinions in the most precise way , since it uses its own language to communicate.

However, within it one can make use of metaphors and other literary resources that do not necessarily communicate in a literal way what they really mean. In fact, within literature we find poetry and theatre.

Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, Wlliam Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Calderón de la Barca’s Life is a Dream and Miguel de Cervantes’s very famous Don Quixote are, to name a few, great works of world literature.

4. Painting

Painting transmits beauty through the use of visual techniques , either on a canvas or in any other place where it can be painted.

Since time immemorial, human beings have expressed their reality by using pigments and making drawings with them, trying to convey a message that would last for centuries.

He combines pictorial elements of all kinds, such as geometric shapes, perspective, colours, textures , trying or not to present them in a harmonious way or being groundbreaking, and thus transmitting a message of abruptness and desire to go against the tide.

Some of the best known paintings are Edvard Munch’s The Cry, Picasso’s Guernica, Johannes Vermeer’s The Young Girl with the Pearl, the prehistoric paintings at Atapuerca and probably the most famous painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

5. Sculpture

With the sculpture forms are created in the three-dimensional space . The techniques for this can be varied, such as making reliefs, modelling, carving or sculpting, using various materials such as clay, stone or bronze.

The Discobolus of Myron of Eleuteras, the Moai of the Easter Islands, the Christ the Redeemer in the city of Rio de Janeiro or Michelangelo’s Pieta are some examples of famous sculptures.

6. Music

Music is a sound art, which is governed by principles such as melody, rhythm and harmony. Sounds emitted by various instruments, whether strings, wind or percussion, can be used , in addition to adding the human voice to the artistic ensemble.

The word “music” comes from the Greeks, as they considered this art to be the product of the muses, who beautified the world with their musical skills.

From the melodies sung on zithers by the Greeks, to King Alfonso X’s Cantigas de Santa Maria, the works of Mozart, Vivaldi and Beethoven or the songs of Britney Spears are just a tiny portion of all the musical works that humanity has created since it has inhabited this planet.

7. Cinema

Cinematography has usually been called “the seventh art”, because it was the last beautiful art to be admitted into the official classification.

Actually, this art combines characteristics of the other six, since it combines elements typical of literature, such as the script, the soundtrack comes from the field of music and the images can be understood as a product of the pictorial arts.

Cinema can be understood as a way of transforming theatre into something crystallised, something that is perpetually recorded on videotape.

The first films were filmed at the end of the 19th century by the Lumière brothers , and since then this art has not stopped offering artistic works.

Charles Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino or Pedro Almodóvar are just a few examples of great film directors.

Characteristics of the fine arts

As we have seen, the fine arts that are contemplated are architecture, dance, literature, painting, sculpture, music and cinema, although this classification is under debate due to the appearance of new artistic techniques such as photography or the convenience of splitting up complex arts and making their subcategories independent.

Whatever fine arts may be included or excluded from the official classification in the future, the fact is that all of them have the following characteristics .

1. Aspire to communicate beauty

Whatever the art itself and however it is done, its aim is to convey a beautiful experience, to enjoy the harmonious and to go beyond the purely earthly.

2. Universality

The works of art aim to transmit their message to the whole of humanity , trying to break the barriers of religious, ethnic or sexual differences.

3. Durability

The purpose for which a work of art has been created is that it lasts over time, so that it can be enjoyed by several generations and people from different periods.

There are only 7 fine arts?

The classification of the fine arts has not been static since the concept was formulated. That is why there have been those who have considered it appropriate to include other arts, even talking about an eighth and ninth art.

Of particular importance has been the theme of the theater , since many are those who consider that it should be an art separate from literature, having the same opinion with regard to poetry.

Within the pictorial arts, which so far are only sculpture and painting, the creation of other independent categories has been considered . To give some examples, photography, mosaics, printing, calligraphy, ceramics or conceptual art.

Bibliographic references

  • Batteux, C. (1746). Les Beaux Arts réduits à un même principe. Imprimerie de CH. J. B. Delspine, ed.
  • Ballard, A. (1898). Arrows; or, Teaching a fine art. A.S. Barnes & Company, New York. USA.
  • Torrey, J. (1874). A theory of fine art. Scribner, Armstrong, and Co.