Various Arts Designs The various visual arts exist within a that ranges from purely aesthetic purposes at one end to purely utilitarian purposes at the other. Such a polarity of purpose is reflected in the commonly used terms artist and artisan , the latter understood as one who gives considerable attention to the utilitarian . This should by no means be taken as a rigid scheme, however. Even within one form of art, motives may vary widely; thus a potter or a weaver may create a highly functional work that is at the same time beautiful—a salad bowl, for example, or a blanket—or may create works that have no purpose beyond being admired. In such as those of Africa and Oceania, a definition of art that encompasses this continuum has existed for centuries. In the West, however, by the mid-18th century the development of academies for painting and sculpture established a sense that these media were “art” and therefore separate fr...