ARTIST, in a general sense, a person skilled in some art ; or, according to Mr. Harris's definition, a person possessing an habitual power of becoming the cause of some effect, according to a system of va rious and well-approved precepts. In this sense, we say, an excellent, a curious artist. The pre-eminence is disputed be tween ancient and modern artists, especi ally as to what relates to sculpture, paint ing, and the like. At Vicenza, we are told of a privilege granted to artists, like that of clergy in England ; in virtue of this, criminals adjiidged to death save their lives, if they can prove themselves the most excellent and consummate workmen in any useful art. This benefit is allowed them in favorem artie, for the first offence, except for some particular crimes, of which coining is one. The exception is just, since here the greater the artist, the more dangerous the person. Evelyn's Disc. of medals, ch. vii. p. 237, &c. Artists are persons who practise those arts which must necessarily be combined with a considerable degree of science, distinguishing them from such as are properly artizans or mechanics. Ar tists are, particularly, those who study and effect what are termed the polite arts, i.e. painting, sculpture, and architecture, to which may be added engraving. It ap pears that all civilized nations in every age have produced artists, and that with a degree of excellence, generally an swerable to their civilization and opulence. In every nation where the arts have flourished, the artists have made but rude essays, and by degrees they have been nurtured up to excellence, except in such instances where they have been transplanted, as from Greece to Rome.
It is universally acknowledged respecting statuary and architecture, that ancient Greece has produced the best artists in the world ; their works, which have es caped the ravages of time, are the stand ing monuments of their time, and are still considered as the models of perfec tion ; there is, however, an uncertainty, whether their painters were equally skill ed with their statuaries. With some reason, many judicious persons have sup posed they were not ; while others con tend, that so much excellence produced in one branch must have contemporary artists, who would excel in the other also. While we cannot doubt of the genius ofthe Grecian artists, and of their ability to pro duce works of excellence, yet it may not be allowed, that this argument will be found to be so conclusive as it may at first appear, since Chinese and Indian models are found in a more perfect state than either their drawings or paintings. When the Goths overran Italy, the arts were de stroyed ; and, with Grecian architecture, painting and sculpture lay in one common grave forgotten, until they revived under some artists in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, who ought not to be named as artists, but for the succeeding effects to which their efforts prepared the way, and in a short time after produced Mi chael Angelo, Raphael, Correggio, Titian, Algardi, Bernini, &c. painters, sculptors, and architects, to whose works the living artists are almost as much indebted, as these illustrious characters were to the ancient monuments they dug from the ruins of old Rome. See Aars,fine.