An artist is mostly about the art and doing things that result in beautiful images approved by their supervisors! Knowing programming can make them more effect

An artist is mostly about the art and doing things that result in beautiful images approved by their supervisors! Knowing programming can make them more effective but it is not the job, you want something that your CG Supervisor approves and that looks beautiful in the screen. There are usually Technical Directors (TD) that work close to the departments and know programming more to help the artists. That said, some artists can be quite technical and know programming. The tool Houdini which produces FX (simulations for fluid, debris, fire, etc.) usually has a couple of programming wizards. They can be quite good in algorithms / hacking stuff together to make it work well in a scene, but not necessarily software design.