artă

Forms

artă f (plural arte)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French art and, at the same time, borrowed from Latin ars (“skill, art”), a neologism with more than one model, as DEX, DILF and DELR give it.^[2][3][4] DER takes it from Italian arte, itself from Latin, and dates it to the 19th century.^[5] Tiktin also names Italian alone, while MDA2 and Wiktionary name Latin alone.^[6][7][1] DELR derives the old variant ⟨arte⟩ from Italian and Latin.^[4]

The Latin word comes from *h₂r̥tís (“the fitting”), from the root *h₂er- (“to join”).^[8][1] DELR puts it beside artus (“joint”), armus (“shoulder”) and arma (“arms”), words of the same root.^[4] Graur groups Romanian armă, inert and artificiu with it as descendants of the same Latin family.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is of 1781.^[6] DELR dates the word to 1823, in the form art, a neuter noun, in a text of Vârnav.^[4] MDA2's first record is in the Uricariul, before 1851.^[7] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 defines it as a method of doing something well according to rules, and lists the fine arts as eloquence, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, music and dance.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The early sense was “skill, a way of doing something by rules”, as in Negulici and Șăineanu.^[10][11] The aesthetic sense, the activity that creates beauty and the works it produces, is now the first one in the dictionaries.^[2][7] The older sense lives on as “mastery, great skill” and in names of crafts that need skill and knowledge.^[2]

Fixed phrases include operă de artă “work of art”, om de artă “person working in the arts”, arte frumoase “fine arts”, artă populară “folk art”, the medieval arte liberale and the familiar de dragul artei “for its own sake, without gain”.^[2][7] The family grew quickly: artist is recorded from 1829 and artistic from about 1832, both also neologisms.^[4]

Timeline

• 1781 – the first record.^[6]
• 1823 – the variant art in Vârnav.^[4]
• 1829 – artist “artist”.^[4]
• c. 1832 – artistic in I. Golescu.^[4]
• 1840 – artistă and artisticește.^[4]
• 1848 – Negulici defines it and lists the fine arts.^[10]
• before 1851 – in the Uricariul.^[7]
• 1885 – pseudoartist in Maiorescu.^[4]
• 1886 – neartistic in Dobrogeanu-Gherea.^[4]
• 1959 – antiartă, after French anti-art.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. art: the human activity that creates aesthetic values by its own means of expression; the works of art of a period or a country: Arta Renașterii este bogată.^[2][7][1]
2. Great skill in an activity; mastery; also an occupation that needs much skill and knowledge: arta de a găti.^[2][7]

Word family

• antiartă
• antiartistic
• artist
• artistic
• artisticește
• neartistic
• pseudoartist

Related words

• armă
• artificiu
• Latin ars

Usage notes

De artă works as an adjective, “artistic”, and de dragul (or de amorul) artei means “for nothing, out of pure interest”.^[2][7] Arte liberale are the seven disciplines of the medieval school curriculum.^[2][7] MDA2 lists a separate artă as a form of harță “quarrel”.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 64
3. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria, p. s.v. artă
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. artă
5. ^ Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. artă
6. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. artă
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 103
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 21
10. ^ a b c Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. artă
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 37