Artist

An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, the term is also often used in the entertainment business, especially in a business context, for musicians and other performers (although less often for actors). "Artiste" (the French for artist) is a variant used in English in this context, but this use has become rare. Use of the term "artist" to describe writers is valid, but less common, and mostly restricted to contexts like that used in criticism.

For other uses, see Artist (disambiguation).

Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, Goethe in the Roman Campagna, 1787, portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German artist known for his works of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, visual arts, and science.

Dictionary definitions

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the older broad meanings of the term "artist":

  • A learned person or Master of Arts
  • One who pursues a practical science, traditionally medicine, astrology, alchemy, chemistry
  • A follower of a pursuit in which skill comes by study or practice
  • A follower of a manual art, such as a mechanic
  • One who makes their craft a fine art
  • One who cultivates one of the fine arts – traditionally the arts presided over by the muses

History of the term

The Greek word "techně", often translated as "art," implies mastery of any sort of craft. The adjectival Latin form of the word, "technicus",[1] became the source of the English words technique, technology, technical.

In Greek culture each of the nine Muses oversaw a different field of human creation:

No muse was identified with the visual arts of painting and sculpture. In ancient Greece sculptors and painters were held in low regard, somewhere between freemen and slaves, their work regarded as mere manual labour.[2]

The word art derives from the Latin "ars" (stem art-), which, although literally defined means "skill method" or "technique", also conveys a connotation of beauty.

During the Middle Ages the word artist already existed in some countries such as Italy, but the meaning was something resembling craftsman, while the word artesan was still unknown. An artist was someone able to do a work better than others, so the skilled excellency was underlined, rather than the activity field. In this period some "artisanal" products (such as textiles) were much more precious and expensive than paintings or sculptures.

The first division into major and minor arts dates back at least to the works of Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472): De re aedificatoria, De statua, De pictura, which focused on the importance of the intellectual skills of the artist rather than the manual skills (even if in other forms of art there was a project behind).[3]

With the Academies in Europe (second half of 16th century) the gap between fine and applied arts was definitely set.

Many contemporary definitions of "artist" and "art" are highly contingent on culture, resisting aesthetic prescription, in much the same way that the features constituting beauty and the beautiful cannot be standardized easily without corruption into kitsch.

The present day concept of an 'artist'

Artist is a descriptive term applied to a person who engages in an activity deemed to be an art. An artist also may be defined unofficially as "a person who expresses him- or herself through a medium". The word is also used in a qualitative sense of, a person creative in, innovative in, or adept at, an artistic practice.

Most often, the term describes those who create within a context of the fine arts or 'high culture', activities such as drawing, painting, sculpture, acting, dancing, writing, filmmaking, new media, photography, and music—people who use imagination, talent, or skill to create works that may be judged to have an aesthetic value. Art historians and critics define artists as those who produce art within a recognized or recognizable discipline. Contrasting terms for highly skilled workers in media in the applied arts or decorative arts include artisan, craftsman, and specialized terms such as potter, goldsmith or glassblower. Fine arts artists such as painters succeeded in the Renaissance in raising their status, formerly similar to these workers, to a decisively higher level.

The term may also be used loosely or metaphorically to denote highly skilled people in any non-"art" activities, as well— law, medicine, mechanics, or mathematics, for example.

Often, discussions on the subject focus on the differences among "artist" and "technician", "entertainer" and "artisan", "fine art" and "applied art", or what constitutes art and what does not. The French word artiste (which in French, simply means "artist") has been imported into the English language where it means a performer (frequently in Music Hall or Vaudeville). Use of the word "artiste" can also be a pejorative term.[4]

The English word 'artiste' has thus a narrower range of meaning than the word 'artiste' in French.

In Living with Art, Mark Getlein proposes six activities, services or functions of contemporary artists:[5]

  1. Create places for some human purpose.
  2. Create extraordinary versions of ordinary objects.
  3. Record and commemorate.
  4. Give tangible form to the unknown.
  5. Give tangible form to feelings.
  6. Refresh our vision and help see the world in new ways.

After looking at years of data on arts school graduates as well as policies & program outcomes regarding artists, arts, & culture, Elizabeth Lingo and Steven Tepper propose the divide between "arts for art's sake" artists and commercially successful artists is not as wide as may be perceived, and that "this bifurcation between the commercial and the noncommercial, the excellent and the base, the elite and the popular, is increasingly breaking down" (Eikhof & Haunschild, 2007). Lingo and Tepper point out:[6]

  1. arts consumers don't restrict themselves to either "high" or "common" arts; instead, they demonstrate "omnivorous tastes, liking both reggae and Rachmaninoff" (Peterson & Kern, 1996; Walker & Scott-Melnyk, 2002)
  2. data indicates "artists are willing to move across sectors and no longer see working outside the commercial sector as a badge of distinction or authenticity" (Bridgstock, 2013; Ellmeier, 2003)
  3. academic, policy, and government leaders are adapting—widening—programs & opportunities in recognition of "the role of artists as drivers of economic growth and innovation" (Bohm & Land, 2009; DCMS, 2006, 2008; Florida, 2012; Hesmondhalgh & Baker, 2010; Lloyd, 2010; Iyengar, 2013).
  4. arts graduates name "business and management skills" as the "number one area [they] wish they had been more exposed to in college" (Strategic National Arts Alumni Project [SNAAP], 2011; Tepper & Kuh, 2010).[7]

Training and employment

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies many visual artists as either craft artists or fine artists.[8] A craft artist makes handmade functional works of art, such as pottery or clothing. A fine artist makes paintings, illustrations (such as book illustrations or medical illustrations), sculptures, or similar artistic works primarily for their aesthetic value.

The main source of skill for both craft artists and fine artists is long-term repetition and practice.[8] Many fine artists have studied their art form at university and some have a master's degree in fine arts. Artists may also study on their own or receive on-the-job training from an experienced artist.

The number of available jobs as an artist is increasing more slowly than other fields.[8] About half of US artists are self-employed. Others work in a variety of industries. For example, a pottery manufacturer will employ craft artists, and book publishers will hire illustrators.

In the US, fine artists have a median income of approximately US$50,000 per year, and craft artists have a median income of approximately US$33,000 per year.[8] This compares to US$61,000 for all art-related fields, including related jobs such as graphic designers, multimedia artists, animators, and fashion designers.[8] Many artists work part-time as artists and hold a second job.[8]

Examples of art and artists

See also

Notes
  1. Oxford English Dictionary s.v. technic
  2. In Our Time: The Artist BBC Radio 4, TX 28 March 2002
  3. P.Galloni, Il sacro artefice. Mitologie degli artigiani medievali, Laterza, Bari, 1998
  4. Kenneth G. Wilson. The Columbia guide to standard American English.
  5. Getlein, Mark (2012). Living with Art. McGraw-Hill Education. ISBN 978-0-07-337925-8.
  6. Clowney, David (21 December 2008). "A Third System of the Arts? An Exploration of Some Ideas from Larry Shiner's The Invention of Art: A Cultural History". www.contempaesthetics.org. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  7. "concept of artist".
  8. "Craft and Fine Artists". Occupational Outlook Handbook (2016–17 ed.). U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 17 December 2015. Retrieved 21 October 2017.

References
  • P.Galloni, Il sacro artefice. Mitologie degli artigiani medievali, Laterza, Bari, 1998
  • C. T. Onions (1991). The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Clarendon Press Oxford. ISBN 0-19-861126-9
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