As I'm nearing the end of a semester of "Philosophy of Art", I can't help but wonder if the best way to define "art" is as "excess". By "excess" I just mean "something that doesn't serve a practical purpose".
For instance, a painting on a wall: It may be pretty, it may be thought provoking, but the wall wouldn't really be any worse off if the painting weren't there. Perhaps we would say that removing the painting takes away a certain feeling of "warmth" in the wall, but that doesn't give the painting a practical purpose, only a psychological purpose.
Similarly, the difference between a show car, and a '93 Ford Escort. It's quite likely that the Escort will be able to get you from point A to point B every bit as well as the show car (maybe even better depending upon what aspect of the car is being showcased), but what makes the show car so much more popular is all of the extra stuff that doesn't really have any bearing on how well the car runs, and perhaps sometimes even would make the car run worse.
The last point I want to make is that I don't think it's actually important that people actually like something in order for it to be art. It's possible that something... *cough* *Duchamp's "Fountain"* *cough* could just simply be "bad" art.
To sum up: I think maybe the best way to define "art" is: Something that a person puts conscious effort into creating, absent any practical reason to do so.
