Artist. An artist is a person who creates art, typically as a profession or as a significant part of their personal practice. Artists can work in a wide range of disciplines, including visual arts, performing arts, literary arts, and conceptual arts. Artists use their creativity, skills, and imagination to produce works that engage, challenge, and inspire others. Some examples of artists include painters, sculptors, photographers, illustrators, dancers, musicians, actors, writers, and performance artists. Artists often have a unique perspective or vision that they express through their work. They may draw from personal experiences, cultural influences, or social and political issues to create pieces that reflect their ideas, emotions, or beliefs. Being an artist often requires a combination of technical skills, creative vision, and dedication to one's craft. Many artists pursue formal education or training to develop their skills and deepen their understanding of their chosen medium. However, some artists are self-taught or learn through apprenticeships or mentorships. The term is often used in the entertainment business, especially in a business context, for musicians and other performers. 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 derives from the Latin ars, 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 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: De re aedificatoria, De statua, De pictura, which focused on the importance of the intellectual skills of the artist rather than the manual skills. With the Academies in Europe 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. Artist is a descriptive term applied to a person who engages in an activity deemed to be an art.