Artistic license - Definition and Overview

Artistic licence or license (US) is a colloquial term used to denote the liberties an artist may take in the name of art — for example, if an artist decided it was more artistically "correct" to portray St. Pauls Cathedral next to the Houses of Parliament in a scene of London, even though in reality they are not close together, or if he or she decided to depict a dinosaur chasing a neanderthal (even though the two never coexisted), that would be artistic license.

In summary, artistic license is:

• Entirely at the artist's discretion
• To be tolerated by the viewer
• Neither "good" nor "bad"
• Useful for filling in gaps, whether they be factual, compositional, historical or otherwise
• Used consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally or in tandem

For Artistic License or Licence, as a type of licence used for some kinds of free software, see Artistic License. This name is a pun on the original usage.