What is art?

"Passionate debate keeps the question "What is art?" healthily alive, but for our purpose, I offer the following response to it:  art is an embodied form of energy.  Energy fuels the process of art's inspiration and creation, and in turn, art acts as a carrier for an idea, the vehicle for energy from the etheric to the physical realms.  Without energy, we merely have gesture, phrase or line without meaning or resonance.  Art begins and ends with energy -- it's energy that ignites the first small spark of a concept within its maker and energy which resonates with lasting reverberations in those who experience the work.  It's the captured energy in art that can spur an emotional reaction:  our personal vibration aligns with that of the piece and viola!  We have contact.  We are affected, moved.  We have been changed, in some major or small way."  --  p.19  Kick-Ass Creativity by Mary Beth Maziarz

 When I read this, at the beginning of the passage I was skeptical, thinking "where is she going with this"? But the end bit makes complete sense:  why does some art immediately register within you while other pieces simply don't leave an impression?  There's some sort of connectivity, some sort of matching up taking place, whether it's with a good book, an incredible sculpture or an awesome photograph.  There's something uniquely similar, replicated in that art that makes it feel like it's part of you and you want to hang on to it, continue to experience it. 

(As you can see I've made it to page 19... three weeks and that's as far as I got...)