decorative art

American  

noun

1. art that is meant to be useful as well as beautiful, as ceramics, furniture, jewelry, and textiles.

2. Usually decorative arts. any of the arts, as ceramics or jewelry making, whose works are created to be useful.

3. works of decorative art collectively.

---

Etymology

Origin of decorative art

First recorded in 1850–55

Example Sentences

Christie's haute couture auction - which started on Jan. 11 and runs until Jan. 25 - has been attracting mostly fashion and decorative art museums as well as the fashion houses themselves seeking to fill their archives.

From Reuters

Eighteenth century French decorative art is nothing if not dissolutely bawdy — words not often appended to Disney’s art, which neutered French decorative arts as much as it animated them.

From Los Angeles Times

In each of the 65 episodes, a Frick curator offers insights on a work of art in the museum’s collection — a painting, sculpture or decorative art — as well as a related cocktail.

From New York Times

Logvyn has spent some 80 hours over the past two weeks painting the hedgehog in the highly detailed style known as Petrykivka painting, a form of traditional decorative art originating in the village of Petrykivka in eastern Ukraine.

From Washington Post

“People have gotten more and more creative, and we have a lot more elaborate costumes and decorative art that people have built.”

From Seattle Times