Beaux-arts

les Beaux-arts (FR N-M PL) the fine arts. In classical usage, refers to any of the plastic arts: architecture, engraving, painting, and sculpture, which seek to represent beauty visually. Later the term was broadened to include music. Beaux-Arts also refers to a distinct art and architectural style popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, named after Paris' grand academy, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (founded 1648, given its present name 1791), featuring monumentally scaled buildings with…