Art: a working definition

Film is art. At least, film can be art.
I love those that are. Not simply those classified as "arthouse" either. But what is art?

I used to think of art as “expression”.
Art captures the mood of a thing, and shows a way of perceiving the world from the artist’s point of view.
That was my working definition.

Even the less overtly expressive paintings, like A Burial at Ornans, which I still remember from high school,
captured a way of seeing things from Courbet’s realist point of view. Here’s a deeply significant occasion rendered common; with a wandering dog, a child tugging at someone’s arm, and people looking in different directions, distracted. It’s unglamorous. But it artfully displays a way of perceiving the world.

My working definition changed recently.
I was fortunate enough to spend some time with teacher, actor and film-critic John Flaus
who offered this insight into defining art:

Art is “inexhaustible to meditation”.

John attributed this quote to I.A.Richards in his reflections on Coleridge’s poetry.
It’s my new working definition of art. As I apply that to short films, I think it’s like asking, “could I watch it again and still get something out of it?” Or even if I couldn’t watch it again, "does its meaning go on resonating for me at some deeper level?" By this definition, John reckoned Mish Mumkin was more art than Mr Deity.
I know what he means, despite the different production values evident in the craft of each of those short films.

It’s worth considering films, regardless of length, as art.
When we do, we open up an enormous history of artists and creators who have gone before.
Artists who explore what it means to be human.

How do you define art?