Art is a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities; this article focuses primarily on the

visual arts, which includes the creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photo graphy, and other visual media. Architecture is often included as one of the vis ual arts; however, like the decorative arts, it involves the creation of objects where the practical considerations of use are essential in a way that they are us ually not for a painting, for example. Music, theatre, film, dance, and other pe rforming arts, as well as literature, and other media such as interactive media are included in a broader definition of art or the arts.[1] Until the 17th centu ry, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences, but in modern usage the fine arts, where aesthetic considerations a re paramount, are distinguished from acquired skills in general, and the decorat ive or applied arts. By a broad definition of art,[7] artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind: from early pre-historic art to contemporary art; however, some the ories restrict the concept to modern Western societies.[9] The first and broades t sense of art is the one that has remained closest to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to "skill" or "craft." A few examples where this meanin g proves very broad include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, and mi litary arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology. In medieval philosophy, John Chrysostom held that "the name of art should be app lied to those only which contribute towards and produce necessaries and mainstay s of life." Thomas Aquinas, when treating the adornment of women, gives an ethic al justification as to why: "In the case of an art directed to the production of goods which men cannot use without sin, it follows that the workmen sin in maki ng such things, as directly affording others an occasion of sin; for instance, i f a man were to make idols or anything pertaining to idolatrous worship. But in the case of an art the products of which may be employed by man either for a goo d or for an evil use, such as swords, arrows, and the like, the practice of such an art is not sinful. These alone should be called arts."[10] Aquinas held that art is nothing else than "the right reason about certain works to be made," and that it is commendable, not for the will with which a craftman does a work, "bu t for the quality of the work. Art, therefore, properly speaking, is an operativ e habit." Aristotle and Aquinas distinguish it from the related habit of prudenc e.[11] The second and more recent sense of the word art is as an abbreviation for creat ive art or fine art and emerged in the early 17th century.[12] Fine art means th at a skill is being used to express the artist's creativity, or to engage the au dience's aesthetic sensibilities, or to draw the audience towards consideration of the finer things. The word art can refer to several things: a study of creative skill, a process o f using the creative skill, a product of the creative skill, or the audience's e xperience with the creative skill. The creative arts (art as discipline) are a c ollection of disciplines that produce artworks (art as objects) that are compell ed by a personal drive (art as activity) and convey a message, mood, or symbolis m for the viewer to interpret (art as experience). Art is something that stimula tes an individual's thoughts, emotions, beliefs, or ideas through the senses. Ar tworks can be explicitly made for this purpose or interpreted on the basis of im ages or objects. Although the application of scientific knowledge to derive a ne w scientific theory involves skill and results in the "creation" of something ne w, this represents science only and is not categorized as art.