We propose that the value of art is registered by the emotion of wonder. Departing from some standard approaches in empirical aesthetics, we focus on the appreciation of art as art rather than mere aesthetic preference. We analyze wonder and emphasize three subemotional components: cognitive perplexity, perceptual engagement, and a sense of reverence (Joerg Fingerhut)

The history of the classification of the arts is complicated for several reasons but chiefly because the idea of art has changed. The classical idea differed from ours in at least two respects. First, it was concerned not with the products of art but with the act of producing them and in particular the ability to produce them; e.g., it pointed to the skill of the painter rather than to the picture. Second, it embraced not only ‘artistic’ ability but any human ability to produce things so long as it was a regular production based on rules (Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz)