What was art for Nietzsche?

Answer 1

I suspect he believed the will to create was the will to change. Being that all those who create suffer(even if it is from an overabundance of their own happiness). & therefore God was patient Zero. I am reminded of his statement about Shakespeare(& himself): "what must this man suffer from to have such a need of being a buffon"
So what was art? Perhaps an attempt at curing ones self, shedding ones burden"work" or possibly just an escape from ones own reality.

Answer 2

Art, music, and culture not only had great aesthetic values to Nietzsche, but immense importance to our very existence. Keep in mind that Nietzsche cherished our individual experience over truths of natural science and philosophy.

But it is not exactly hedonistic. He does not say that art is for enjoyment, and Nietzsche's life wasn't necessarily the most pleasant way to live. He was solitary and lonely all the time and lacked love.
I think art was the meaning to his life, not because it gave joy to him but because it held immense importance.

Nietzsche wrote in The Birth of Tragedy, “it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified.”