A theory which I am working on - You can help by expanding it. Now concentrate:

"Art" is, at its most basic and essential level, the DISTINCTIVE COMMUNICATION of PERCEPTION.

Anything you add on top of that definition is surplus. Anything you remove means it is no longer art.

If you remove DISTINCTIVE it becomes merely manufacturing or replication (the outcome is not unique and displays no opinion).
If you remove COMMUNICATION it becomes merely a unique thought (the concept is not being shared but merely perceived).
If you remove PERCEPTION it becomes either craft (the outcome is merely utilitarian) or simply the movement of information.

Both good and bad art can be defined using this term too.
Bad art fails in one or more of these three key features - it wasnt Distinctive (anyone can do that), it wasn't Communicative (the artists conclusion was obscured or weak), it wasn't perceptive enough (the artists definition was shallow, unrelatable or difficult to comprehend).

"Fine art" would be the distinctive communication of an interpretation both refined and abridged in a uniquely appropriate manner.

I say abridged because good art comes from the condensing of ideas into a small but highly digestible framework. Fitting a personal concept into an appropriate physical frame. An exceptional work of art fills a framework with only essential features, nothing more and nothing less, to be distinctive, communicative and interpretive.