Poll: Loose definition of "art"? (read comments first)

Art is a very complex concept, so its definition is going to be wordy.

First, art is artificial (the two words are, of course, related in origin). That is, art is a product of deliberate human processes.

Second, X is art if one of its maker's purposes in making it was to engage human aesthetic perception. Aesthetic perception is a mode of perception that is acutely sensitive to the properties (the qualities, structures and quantities) of an object. That is, when we perceive an object with our perception in 'aesthetic mode', our attention is not on what the object is in relation to us but on what it is in itself.

A work of art is defined by its content and form. More than anything else we make, an art object is independent of context. Mundane or normal perception of X is knowing X as X in its context, as an object among other objects - with the perceiver as part of its context. But an art object seen as a blend of forms and contents has an identity to which those contents and forms are sufficient. It needs no context to complete its identity. It is its own context.

And as an object of aesthetic perception, the art object has no value other than aesthetic value.

This is only the beginning of a definition of art.