How do you define art?

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I have never understood how you can categorize something as "art" because it is such a subjective perception. Meaning, what is art to someone can be meaningless squiggles to someone else.
Case in point, my Sophomore year Pottery class teacher. She graded pieces based on her perception of good work, not the effort that was put into the art itself. By that scale, only the truly "talented" artists in that class would succeed in passing it and people who worked just as hard but did not meet her "standards" failed and were also humiliated when she would publicly denounce their pieces as "crap" or "thats not art". By the way, I got an A in that class, so don't think I'm disgruntled, just disgusted that a few people in my class did put in a lot of effort only to get ripped on and failed by a pretentious woman who thought her vision of art was the only one.
I say from personal view that art is the expression of one's self through a chosen medium, whether be it paintings, music, pottery, video games, movies, poetry, stories, diaramas, architecture, sculptures and so on. Whether the art is "good" is up to the person beholding it.
So, I guess art is whatever you think it is... or isn't.

 

[SimuLord]

Art is a lot like porn. You can't define it, but you know it when you see it.

Personally, my threshold between "art" and "nice try, but I wouldn't call it art" is quite high (thus my stand about video games), but it's semantic. BonsaiK raises a good point.

Art is like a lot of things that speak to the soul. Ask a hundred people what it is, you might get consensus, you might not. Ask a hundred people what it is to them and you'll get a hundred different answers that are as varied as the group you've assembled.

It's like love. Or God. Or happiness.

 

[Sven und EIN HUND]

Art is a lot like porn. You can't define it, but you know it when you see it.

A thousand times this.