Defining Art

Today in class we talked some more about a good means as to how we can properly define art. As it turns out we discussed the definition this time in the format of an equation, to which I thought was a particularly appealing idea, so I started working on what I think is my appropriate understanding of art and how it can be defined.

What I came up with was an extention of the equation that we had in class that I feel incoorperates all aspects that I think are necessary in properly describing what art is and why it is important. The equation accomplishes two things: it shows what art is, and also gives an interesting way to determine if art is valued amongst people of the art world, and it looks like this:


How do you feel that this equation does to define art? What differences do you think make it stronger or weaker?

Response to Andrea

To attempt to answer your question and touch on additional things that you mentioned in your post, I have two opinions.
First off, I'll try to answer your question, to which I think that the necessity to try and define art is more significant than it seems. Mostly because if we could come to some sort of concrete answer as to what art is and why, then lots of other things would become certainly much easier to answer by classification. Additionally, it is a frustrating thing to have a word that everyone in the world knows and understands, but can't be truly defined in a concrete manor. All in all, it would be nice if there were some sort of constant that we could agree on and attempt to hold against any formidable question.
Secondly, there is the string of comments that you left in your last paragraph, to which I think are very interesting. I think that the idea of philosopher's not defining words and ideas is incorrect; in fact I almost feel it’s the opposite. To my understanding, philosophy is a practice of unbiased understanding and proving of truth, to which defining art is a paramount example. To look at art philosophically is but to understand what art is and why it is significant to all things that it affects.

Do you still disagree?

Artists vs. Nature

Today in class we mentioned the currently indistinguishable difference between art created by people, and art that is beautiful of its own existence out in nature as to whether these things qualify as art itself. Interestingly enough, we mentioned that artists specifically try to immitate what we know as the world via the skills that they have in manipulating different mediums to accomplish this.
With both of these things having been mentioned, I feel that it is interesting to take note of people who have been studying computer graphics with the intention of making the artistic world that we view much more "beautiful" than our own real life could ever allow. As an example of this, consider all of the work that went into the movie Avatar, this level of artistic manipulation is stagering enough that many people can sit to watch this movie and feel like a part of the environment that has been laid out for them.
Considering this ideal of creating an artistically better world, is it possible that artists are working towards the idea of creating something along the same lines as The Matrix to keep people entertained? Are we going to eventually need to give up our reality with the ideal of art as its replacement to keep ourselves entertained?

What are your thoughts?