I’m just curious if the word denoting creative productions and the old verb “to be” come from the same root.
Art (n.) comes from the latin “artum,” meaning “to fit.” (It originally meant “skill.”)
Art (v.) as in “Thou art” in an inflection of the verb “am-”, which dates back to Proto-Indo-European and means “to be.” The latin form of the verb was “es.”
The OED says:
1st sing. pres. ind. of vb. BE. Am, and its inflections art, is, are, are the only parts of the original substantive vb. (Skr. as-, Gr. {epsilon}{sigma}-, L. es-, Goth. is-, i-) now left in Eng.; the pa. tense ind. and subj. being supplied from a different vb. (stem wis-, wes-, Skr. was- to remain, abide: see WAS); and all the other parts from a third vb. BE Skr. bh{umac}-, Gr. {phi}{upsilon}-, L. fu-, fy- to become). As the latter, although its association with the substantive vb. is very recent, supplies the infinitive, the vb. is now usually as a whole called the vb. to BE, under which its forms and uses will be found.
So they come from different sources.