Art and Artificial

 This morning, while in the process of framing one of the course sessions on 'beauty' in Architectural Theory, I was struck by the terms 'art' and 'artificial'. In asking chatGPT "is art and artificial etymologically connected?", the following discussion appeared:

Art and artificial both are effectively derived from the Latin word ars (stem: art-), which meant skill / craft / technique / method / practical knowledge. The Latin ars itself is thought to derive from the Proto-Indo-European root ar-, meaning "to fit together," "to join," or "to arrange." This root also appears in words related to craftsmanship and construction.The English word art came through Old French (art) from Latin ars. Until around the eighteenth century, art referred broadly to any skilled human practice. On the other hand, Artificial comes from the Latin artificialis, meaning "made by art" or "made by skill." This is derived from artificium  which means craftsmanship, skill, workmanship and from artifex which meant craftsman or maker. So artificial originally meant something made through human skill, in contrast to something that occurs naturally.

Originally, calling something artificial was often complimentary. It meant well-crafted, skilfully made or ingenious. Over time, especially from the seventeenth century onward, "artificial" increasingly acquired meanings like synthetic, imitation, fake or not natural. Meanwhile, "art" moved in the opposite direction, becoming associated with creativity, originality, and aesthetic expression. 

Today we often oppose these words: art suggests authenticity, creativity, and expression and artificial suggests imitation, mechanism, or simulation. However, both originally referred to human making through skill. 

ChatGPT explains further:

This shared origin also sheds light on the phrase artificial intelligence. The adjective artificial does not originally imply "fake intelligence"; it literally means intelligence produced through human art (skill, technique, or craft). Whether that intelligence is genuinely comparable to human intelligence is a separate philosophical question, but the etymology reminds us that artificial first meant "crafted" rather than "counterfeit." 

This is one reason the boundaries between art, craft, technology, and technique were much more fluid in antiquity than they are today. The Latin ars and the Greek technē both referred to skilled making, whether one was composing a poem, building a temple, or practicing medicine. The modern separation of "art" from "technology" is a comparatively recent cultural development.