art or not

I just sold two paintings, and the new owner sent me photos of the pieces in their new frames, hanging on his walls.  They looked good.  It felt good for them to have a good home.  

But when I saw them hanging on the wall, I realized that once a painting becomes art on a wall, it is no longer what it was to begin with.  It seems that once on a wall it is art, but before being placed on a wall, moreso before being placed in a frame, a painting is simply the result of a process, a process that my friend says is in fact what art is.  And yet this art, and the art on the wall are different entirely.