Practice question · Multiple choice
The classical concepts of technē and ars encompassed skilled practices like medicine, whereas the eighteenth-century system separated 'fine art' by elevating pure contemplation. What followed from this theoretical shift for functional making?
Hints
- What happened to objects designed for practical use once contemplation became the supreme artistic virtue?
- Does distinguishing fine art from craft elevate or diminish the status of utility?
Show the answer
B. Useful objects were subordinated to non-utilitarian works
Why
Treating function as inferior to contemplation created an artificial hierarchy between pure aesthetics and craft. This was not a practical ban on manual trades, nor an embrace of applied utility, but a devaluation of everyday decorative making.
Practise The Classification of the Arts
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Art History I is free to start.
More questions on The Classification of the Arts
- Arrange these contributions to the classification of the arts in order.
- Why does Lessing argue that painting should choose the moment just before a climax?
- The grouping of painting, sculpture, music, poetry and dance as "the fine arts" dates from antiquity.
- Complete the account of the system of the arts.
- Which exclusions were built into the eighteenth-century system of the fine arts?
- How many arts did Batteux group together as the fine arts on his shared principle?
- Hegel ordered the arts by how far the material is subordinated to the idea.
- Roughly how many centuries old is the grouping we call "the fine arts"?