My Perspective

An artist is defined as a person who creates his work using his creativity and skills while an artisan is defined as one who creates his work with his skill alone. An artist is credited for his or her work and even praised for it. On the other hand an artisan is simply termed as a skilled labourer, and his or her identity is always subordinate to the one who commissions the work. Till the Middle Ages only performers were termed as artists and given their due credit. This is because their art was inseparable from them. One cannot separate dance from a dancer, song from a singer, or music from a musician. But the art created by writers, painters and sculptures are separable and hence these people then did not come under the term "artists". Then came the Renaissance and it changed the society. People who mastered their craft and those whose work stood out among others were given credit and even praised for it. So a painter, writer, sculptor, and architect got a chance to ...