Are you sure about that? Perhaps you have mixed up "artisan" and "artist"? Both come from the root word ars (“art, skill”); from which we also get "artificial",

Are you sure about that? Perhaps you have mixed up "artisan" and "artist"? Both come from the root word ars (“art, skill”); from which we also get "artificial", for "made by skill", and the web site "Ars Technica" for the art/skill of technology. Quoting again from Wikipedia, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artisan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artisan : "Artisans practice a craft and may through experience and aptitude reach the expressive levels of an artist" and "Artisans were the dominant producers of consumer products prior to the Industrial Revolution" Of course, WP can be wrong, so I pulled up a few examples from Google Books from the 20th century, so there could be no feedback from Wikipedia usage: I found https://books.google.com/books?id=CIH912O6ogAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=artisan&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hxM1VbaMBsyesgGh0IG4DA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=artisan&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=CIH912O6ogAC&printsec=fron... : > Nehemiah Wallington was a London Puritan artisan .... Wallington remained in the house of his birth, where he learned his father's trade as a turner and became free of the Company of Turners by patrimony. And https://books.google.com/books?id=oRgNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA34&dq=artisan&hl=sv&sa=X&ei=7BQ1VYXwH8a3sQGcroGICQ&ved=0CE8Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=artisan&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=oRgNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA34&dq=ar... : > His set of motivations, ambition, resentment, acquisitiveness, duty, and altruism, is typical of that shown by the uneasy class of artisan and petit bourgeois reformers. Like Lovett, Place, and later George Howell, Linton was confident of his skills and entrepreneurial abilities and needed litle capital to make an income; but he, like them, remained vulnerable to market changes, indignant at his lowly status, and sensitive to rebuffs from superior powers. .... William Lovett, the upright, self-educated artisan radical ... And https://books.google.com/books?id=8YukeIgFlL4C&pg=PA105&dq=artisan&hl=sv&sa=X&ei=OBY1VdmEMMKqsgHbm4DgDA&ved=0CCAQ6AEwADgU#v=onepage&q=artisan&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=8YukeIgFlL4C&pg=PA105&dq=a... : > In olden days, these village artisans used to be self-sufficient in meeting their family requirements through the payments received by them by operating agriculture supporting artisan enterprises. ... Among the several artisan enterprises, the business of only blacksmiths, carpenters, cobblers and ropemakers is in existence today None of these suggest patronage of any sort. Until the industrial age, artisans were self-employed, and free from direct financial ties to a single patron.