"art is beautiful sentience"
two problems I have with this... though art can be beautiful I don't think it's a requirement.
and art can't be sentient. It is not capable of sense, a painting can not 'feel'. It can evoke feeling and the sort, but actually feel it, not particularly. (though this would describe such art as performance art where the art piece is a sentient being, but that doesn't mean the art is sentient).
Personally from a semantic realm, most dictionaries do a pretty good job at putting it into semantics (which the two of you seem to be trying to do, you're trying to create a concrete definition for 'art', which is what semantic is... semantics: noun - the study of meaning and definition.)
anyways, for instance the first Dictionary.com defintion:
art: noun - the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.
note the OR, beauty is acknowledged, but not required. The statement OR is completely valid in defining things, and with the OR it encompasses the boundaries of communication (expression), both physical and abstract (realm), beauty and aeshetics (durp), and the impact upon its viewer (above ordinary significance).
I mean what's wrong with that defintion in the end? It portrays what 'art' is considered to be.
If you're attempting for an all encompassing and explicit definition to 'art'... really, what are you going to get beyond that? And if you are, words like 'sentient' and 'beautiful' aren't very explicit.
NOTE: for those reading the word explicit and confusing it like it commonly is confused for meaning sexually explicit or something similar, it does not. Explicit means to fully express with out implying anything.
... furthermore I see phrases like this:
You make good points, but I think the definition is violated by this.
How can a definition be violated when you've yet to define it.
I get your desire to perpetuate the discussion further with open discussion about art. But if your proposal for such is to create a more meaningful or exact definition, your just peddling in mud... why not discuss what you truly want to discuss (as it appears to me that is), the different realms and depth that art reaches into. Which it does... that's why we as humans revere art so proudly, we see and utilize it in so many different ways. The idea that we're going to shrink the definition down smacks this idea of art in the face. It's an ever growing, ever changing ideal that people apply to so many different realms, the idea that a static definition can be pronounced defeats the evolution of art. It sets an implication that art can't evolve (though it quite obviousily can).
