The definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The normal meaning in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only. The term is often used in the entertainment business, especially in a business context, for musicians and other performers (less often for actors). "Artiste" (the French for artist) is a variant used in English only in this context. Use of the term to describe writers, for example, is certainly valid, but less common, and mostly restricted to contexts like criticism.

Dictionary definitions

Wiktionary defines the noun 'artist' (Singular: artist; Plural: artists) as follows:

1. A person who creates art.
2. A person who creates art as an occupation.
3. A person who is skilled at some activity.

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

• A learned person or Master of Arts (now rather obsolete)
• One who pursues a practical science, traditionally medicine, astrology, alchemy, chemistry (also obsolete)
• A follower of a pursuit in which skill comes by study or practice - the opposite of a theorist
• A follower of a manual art, such as a mechanic - partly obsolete
• One who makes their craft a fine art
• One who cultivates one of the fine arts - traditionally the arts presided over by the muses - now the dominant usage

A definition of Artist from Princeton.edu: creative person (a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination).

History of the term

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

• 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 '1 of many hymns'): muse of sacred song, oratory, lyric, singing and rhetoric
• Terpsichore (the '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. In ancient Greece sculptors and painters were held in low regard, somewhere between freemen and slaves, their work regarded as mere manual labour.

The word art is derived from the Latin "ars", which, although literally defined means, "skill method" or "technique", holds 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.