Art can be defined as anything that is created to be visually appealing or significant in some way. Art is also something that has meaning and purpose, whether it be to represent feelings, a situation or just to create something beautiful.
The first criteria for art is that it be visually appealing or significant in some way. Art is sometimes created just to copy the beauty of the world and paint it exactly as it exists, such as with a landscape. The same can also be said of portraits, they can be created just to create a copy of a person. Paintings, however, do not need to be visually appealing, they only must be significant.
They may be unappealing but this may be why they are significant, they may be capturing an emotion instead of an object. And this is one of the other reasons why a painting becomes art, it captures emotions or feelings or ideas.
In our portrait example, a real artwork captures more than just a face, it captures emotion and personality as well.
A painting can be called art where it too has a purpose but not all paintings would be called art.
A child drawing can create a painting but it would not be called art if it was not created for a purpose. A student could create a painting out of splashes of paint but this would not be true art unless it had greater meaning.
The difficulty is that it is not just the finished product that matters but the artist also.
Some paintings that are called art look no greater than something a child could produce. The difference is that the artist created them that way for a specific purpose.
Paintings are created with a meaning in mind, the artist creates something that people respond to. A painting that can truly be called art will be one that will mean something to people viewing it. It will express an idea, an emotion or a scene.
A painting that is art then is one that has purpose, whatever that purpose may be.
