What is art?

[The Stonker]

Well, I've been wondering and because there have been some discussions on the Escapist about it and an answer never really came up.
Then what is art?

Because I've heard people say that Michealangelo wasn't an artist but an emperial decorator (true).
And I'm just wondering, when does something go over a certain threshold that it becomes art.
So escapist, what is art?

 

[Just_in_time]

anything that produces an emotional response from the person viewing it or the artist himself. thats why those splashes of paint on a canvas can be called art

 

[Dwarfman]

Art is a creation that has the power to engage the mind, body, senses or soul of the person observing it.

 

[SwagLordYoloson]

Art is Objective and Subjective, Art is Me and You, Art is Anything and Nothing, need I say more?

 

[viranimus]

Basic definition boils down to a purposeful creation that evokes thought or emotion.

This obviously excludes the definition of art being construed as a verb to denote a skillful mastery.

I do think it has to go a little beyond those vague confines however. I remember in my last art class reading of a guy who purchased several billboards around NYC and left them white save for a picture of a bird smaller than an 8x11 sheet of paper. That is not art, that was a waste of money. It might have been art had there been action denoted such as each billboard had a different picture of the bird in flight, and the bird was placed in a different location on the billboard in order to show a path of flight, that way if someone was to walk around town and see the billboards in the right sequence, they would realize the billboards were basically animating the birds flight path in memory. but no, same bird, same location, gigantic waste of money, that even generated money for this "artist"

So in my personal estimation, it has to be something more than basically everything and anything as beauty is in the eye of the beholder.