An artist is someone who employs creative talent to produce works of art. The term may be used in connection with any career, often a branch of the arts—for example music, literature, and theatre—most commonly it refers to an individual who practises the visual arts or fine arts.
An artist will often specialise in a particular medium.
Nevertheless, a distinction is generally drawn between an artist and an artisan, just as there can be merit to making distinctions between the making of art and craft.
Typical factors in such discussions involve an artist's art education of course, along with the use of creativity, craft, and originality.
Of ultimate importance are the qualities of an artist's world-view, which informs his or her sense of design and style (or zeitgeist), resulting in a heightened ability to
Artist is a descriptive term applied to a person who engages in an activity deemed to be an art.
Often, discussions on the subject focus on the differences between "artist" and "technician" or "entertainer," or "artisan," "fineart" and "applied art," or what constitutes art and what does not.
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 easily standardized without corruption into kitsch.