An art manifesto is a public declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of an artist or artistic movement. Manifestos are a standard feature of the various movements in the modernist avant-garde and are still written today. Art manifestos are sometimes in their rhetoric intended for shock value, to achieve a revolutionary effect. They often address wider issues, such as the political system. Typical themes are the need for revolution, freedom (of expression) and the implied or overtly stated superiority of the writers over the status quo. The manifesto gives a means of expressing, publicising and recording ideas for the artist or art group—even if only one or two people write the words, it is mostly still attributed to the group name.

In 1855 Gustave Courbet wrote a Realist manifesto for the introduction to the catalogue of his independent, personal exhibition. And in 1886 the Symbolist Manifesto was published in the French newspaper Le Figaro by the poet and essayist Jean Moréas.