Muslim teaching on Art and Islamic Art

Responding to a question on a thread about this topic, an outline of the way that different schools of thought within Islam respond to the question of what sort of art is permissible. I hope to add the actual suras from the Qur'an which relate to art and the Hadiths to this plus a power point of examples of Islamic Art which can be used in both RE and Art lessons - but to start with, here is my response to the question on the thread.