An artist is a person who is gifted and is able to be creative through an art, which may be dance, painting, music, cinema, photography...

Artists are often admired and envied. Indeed, we may envy their professional life since it suits totally their tastes, and correspond to their passion. Their job isn't really work since they truly like what they are doing, unlike most people.

However, the artists' condition, even if they are fond of their job, is not always enviable. Artists often find it difficult to live on their job and their living conditions are very precarious for most of them. Some even have to get another job besides as to make a living. Therefore, it is often important for artists to make sure they get a diploma in a more common field that may insure them work in case they cannot live on their passion.

Certain people -which probably don't know any artist- think artists are lazy, bone idle... And we often hear that phrase: “You know, he's an artist”, that excuses -often ironically- one's way of thinking, of dressing, or one's ideas that are not really politically correct.

According to the time, the mentalities' evolution, the government in power sometimes, artists were not (and still aren't) always understood. Some of them whose works of art are nowadays worldly recognized were totally denigrated at their time. That is what became of Vincent Van Gogh, who never found any buyer while he was alive and only sold one painting (to his own brother!). One century later, his paintings were sold for millions dollars, like the Portrait of Dr. Gachet which was auctioned for $ 75 M to Ryoei Saito on May, 15th, 1990.