An an artist, of course, I'm very interested in this topic. You've already opened up the discussion wonderfully. I've often wondered myself...what is art?

Unfortunately, I believe the short answer is: art is whatever an artist creates to be considered art and what a society says is art.

The question becomes more: "What is good art?"

But even then, a society can reject the norms of what was previously considered good art, and install a new norm. And we have seen that in the last 150 years or so, with impressionism, post-impressionism, fauvism, cubism, abstract expressionism, etc.

Although at one time, representing reality accurately, even if idealistically was the goal in creating good art, it was thrown out in favor of subjectivity.

So, "it's good if I say it's good, and I can sell enough people on the idea that it's good."

This devolution of art correlates with the devolution of objective truth within society as a whole. Today, we say there are no standards of what is right and wrong--even though there still are--and so you create what you want without following the rules.

In fact, we have paid homage to the artists that have consistently broken the rules--they are the ones that often make it big. Jackson Pollock was one example, who completely rejected pictoral representation as the goal of his drip paintings, and instead decided to create rhythm and design only.

Damien Hirst is a contemporary example, who rejects just about anything "decent" and creates art for shock value.

So, anything is art if the artist created it to be art and enough people accept it as art, but not everything is good art. Even if enough people say it is good, it still is not good, if it defies fundamental concepts of what good art is.

What are the standards or fundamentals of good art?

I'll leave that to you to elaborate more on...

I look forward to your series. This will be a great discussion. Upvoted and resteemed!