This is a very difficult concept to define because of the inherent subjectivity involved—be it from the perspective of the individual or society as a whole—in identifying something as a “work of art.” Consider: among Western thinkers who have grappled with this problem range all the way from Plato to Aristotle to Edmund Burke to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to Leon Trotsky. In fact, it may be legitimate to argue that it is impossible to come up with a single definition of what constitutes a work of art that would encompass every form of artwork that people in a given culture have so considered it. (One person's art may be another person's junk; in one culture a painting of a nude can be a work of art while in another it can be viewed as pornography.) At the same time, it is important to emphasize that the issue of subjectivity itself cannot be separated from such social structural matrixes as class, gender, race, ethnicity, etc.
One solution to the problem I have come up with is to define art on the basis of “genres” from the perspective of a given culture or social structural matrix. Hence, the definition of what constitutes art would differ depending upon whether we are considering a painting or literature or a dance performance or a piece of music or a film or a culinary creation, and so on, in the context of, say, Western culture in contrast to, say, African culture (or bourgeois culture versus working class culture, etc.). That said, however, I would suggest that at least eight key characteristics can be identified as intrinsic to all works of art: First, from the point of view of the artist, works of art involve (a) human creativity (where the artist marches to the beat of his/her own drummer); (b) a motivating impulse to do good (in contrast to evil); (c) talent; (d) passion; and (e) motivation that is independent of the pursuit of monetary reward for its own sake.
Second, from the perspective of audience appreciation, works of art (f) involve an aesthetic experience (delightful, in some way, to one or more of the senses); (g) elicit contemplative cognition; and (h) they stand the test of time. (Note, however, that these last three characteristics may also be relevant from the perspective of the artist—but not always.) Given that we live in the era of capitalism as the dominant mode of production, a problem that often presents itself is how to evaluate an activity that seeks to be labeled art, expressed, for instance, by the by the question: is it art or is it mere entertainment? Consider, for example, cinema. A solution to the problem that I have found works well here is to seek refuge in a definition that distinguishes between art versus commercial entertainment along the lines best captured by Youngblood (1979:754) while discussing this very subject:
By perpetuating a destructive habit of unthinking response to formulas, by forcing us to rely ever more frequently on memory, the commercial entertainer encourages an unthinking response to daily life, inhibiting self-awareness.... He[/she] offers nothing we haven't already conceived, nothing we don't already expect. Art explains; entertainment exploits. Art is freedom from the conditions of memory; entertainment is conditional on a present that is conditioned by the past. Entertainment gives us what we want; art gives us what we don't know what we want. To confront a work of art is to confront one self—but aspects of oneself previously unrecognized. [1]
From this perspective, then, a film is a cinematic work of art when all its constitutive elements (the screenplay, the acting, the cinematography, the editing, the film score, the production design, the sound design, costumery, and so on) work in concert to render the film, at once: intelligently entertaining, powerfully thought-provoking, emotionally challenging, and intellectually enriching. Yet, the fact that the predominant characteristic of most Hollywood films is their obsessive quest for entertainment value—of the lowest common denominator at that—above all else (violence and debauchery being their signatures) speaks to the corrupting influence of corporate capitalism in its obsessive and obscene pursuit of profits.
[1]. Youngblood, Gene. “Art, Entertainment, Entropy.” In Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, edited by Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen, pp. 754-760. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1979.