What is an Artist?
Providing a concise and absolute definition of an 'artist' is difficult, as the term is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities related with practicing the arts, creating art, and/or demonstrating an art. Although the normal meaning in everyday speech is a practitioner in the visual arts only, the term can also be expanded to include musicians, actors and even writers.
Artists in Ancient Culture
In Greek culture, each of the nine Muses oversaw a different field of human creation:
| Name | Meaning | Artistic Field |
|---|---|---|
| Calliope | The 'Beautiful of Speech' | Chief of the muses and muse of epic or heroic poetry |
| Clio | The 'Glorious One' | Muse of history |
| Erato | The 'Amorous One' | Muse of love or erotic poetry, lyrics, and marriage songs |
| Euterpe | The 'Well-Pleasing' | Muse of music and lyric poetry |
| Melpomene | The 'Chanting One' | Muse of tragedy |
| Polyhymnia or Polymnia | The 'Singer of Many Hymns' | Muse of sacred song, oratory, lyric, singing and rhetoric. |
| Terpsichore | The 'One Who Delights in Dance' | Muse of choral song and dance |
| Thalia | The 'Blossoming One' | Muse of comedy and bucolic poetry |
| Urania | The 'Celestial One' | Muse of astronomy |
No muse was identified with the visual arts of painting and sculpture, as sculptors and painters were held in low regard in Ancient Greece, and their work regarded as mere manual labour.
Artists in the Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages, the word artist was used to describe something resembling a craftsman; someone able to do a work better than others. In this period, some "artisanal" products (such as textiles) were much more precious and expensive than paintings or sculptures.
Modern Day Artists
Artist is now typically used as a descriptive term to refer to a person who engages in an activity deemed to be an art. The word also is used in a qualitative sense of, a person creative in, innovative in, or adept at, an artistic practice: people who use imagination, talent, or skill to create works that may be judged to have an aesthetic value. In most cases, the term describes those who create within a context of 'high culture', activities such as painting, drawing, sculpture, dancing, acting, writing, photography, filmmaking, and music.
Examples of Artists
- Abstract: Jackson Pollock
- Actor: John Malkovich
- Animation: Walt Disney
- Architect: Antoni Gaudí
- Ballet: Margot Fonteyn
- Bioart: Hunter O'Reilly
- Calligraphy: Rudolf Koch
- Ceramics: Grayson Perry
- Choreographer: Martha Graham
- Comics: Will Eisner
- Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Conceptual Art: Sol Lewitt
- Cubism: Pablo Picasso
- Dancer: Isadora Duncan
- Designer: Arne Jacobsen
- Entertainer: PT Barnum
- Fashion Designer: Jean Muir
- Film Director: Anthony Minghella
- Fluxus Art: Yoko Ono
- Game Designer: Peter Molyneux
- Graphic Artist: Ludwig Merwart
- Graphic Designer: Peter Saville
- Horticulture: André Le Nôtre
- Illusionist: Houdini
- Illustrator: Quentin Blake
- Impressionism: Claude Monet
- Industrial Designer: Pininfarina
- Jewelry: Fabergé
- Landscape Architect: Frederick Law Olmsted
- Minimalist Artist: Richard Allen
- Muralist: Diego Rivera
- Musician: John Lennon
- Novelist: Charles Dickens
- Musical Instrument Maker: Stradivari
- Orator: Cicero
- Outsider Art: Nek Chand
- Painter: Leonardo da Vinci
- Performance Art: Carolee Schneemann
- Photographer: Ansel Adams
- Photomontage: John Heartfield
- Pianist: Wladyslaw Szpilman
- Playwright: Alan Bennett
- Poet: William Blake
- Potter: Bernard Leach
- Printmaker: William Hogarth
- Sculptor: Auguste Rodin
- Singer: Maria Callas
- Street Art: Banksy
- Surrealism: Salvador Dali
- Typographer: Eric Gill