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Artwork vs Artifact - What's the difference?

artwork | artifact |

As nouns the difference between artwork and artifact

is that artwork is a painting, drawing, sculpture or other piece of creative, visual art while artifact is an object made or shaped by human hand.

artwork

English

Noun

  • A painting, drawing, sculpture or other piece of creative, visual art
  • * {{quote-book, year=2000, title=Privately Owned Public Space: the New York City Experience, author= Jerold S. Kayden
    • , passage=The most distinctive physical attribute of the space is the bright red metal sculpture that resembles one of Claes Oldenburg's oversized clothespins, only slightly deconstructed. The artwork may be enjoyed on its own terms, but ... citation
  • (uncountable) Artistic work.
  • (uncountable, reprographics) The graphical elements to be included in a reproduced work.
    • The text has been reviewed, but the photographer hasn't delivered some of the artwork .

    artifact

    English

    Alternative forms

    * artefact

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An object made or shaped by human hand.
  • (archaeology) An object, such as a tool, weapon or ornament, of archaeological or historical interest, especially such an object found at an archaeological excavation.
    • The dig produced many Roman artifacts .
  • Something viewed as a product of human conception or agency rather than an inherent element.
  • * "The very act of looking at a naked model was an artifact of male supremacy" (Philip Weiss).
  • A structure or finding in an experiment or investigation that is not a true feature of the object under observation, but is a result of external action, the test arrangement, or an experimental error.
    • The spot on his lung turned out to be an artifact of the X-ray process.
  • An object made or shaped by some agent or intelligence, not necessarily of direct human origin.
  • (computing) A perceptible distortion that appears in a digital image, audio or video file as a result of applying a lossy compression algorithm.
    • This JPEG image has been so highly compressed that it has too many unsightly compression artifacts , making it unsuitable for the cover of our magazine.

    References

    * * "artefact" is the preferred spelling in Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary'', with ''artifact listed as a variant. * "artifact" is preferred by the Oxford English Dictionary and most American dictionaries.