Every time I hear that old chestnut of a cliché that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I am left wondering. If beauty is that individual, can there ever be, not just an agreement, but a universal definition. Well, there, must be In that one is being applied all of the time and as soon as consensus about the cultural worth any art object is published it is not just the assumption of a paradigm but a reality. In Plato’s philosophy beauty has to do neither with art nor with nature. For Plato beauty was an abstraction. ‘Forms are beautiful, the perfect being is beautiful, and among these forms, the form of the divine is the most beautiful’. Plato wasn’t alone in attempting to define beauty. Everyone from Kant to Heidegger has contributed to the discussion on Aesthetics and each identified what they considered to be high points in the plastic arts. However, it is the the mystical nature of the platonic abstraction that still seems to be driving choices when it comes to choosing art worthy of a prize. Whatever the reasons for winning or losing, is there such a thing as a universal paradigm of ‘winningness’ which can be applied to all art in all times and all contexts or is the question itself a nonsense.

As another of the annual cycle of major Australian art competitions comes to a conclusion we might well ask, not who was the winner but what was wrong with the thousand entries that didn’t make the grade. There would undoubtedly be a thousand answers that encompass taste, time and context. For a panel of judges, even a panel of gallery trustees, to agree unanimously, as has happened once again with the Archibald Portrait Prize [as well as the Sullman for genre painting and the Wynn for landscape], the assumption has to be that there is just such a universal paradigm even if the disparity between the public choice, the packing room choice and the judged choice remained as far apart as ever.

According to some pundits, there are five characteristics that are used to determine the quality of art. The characteristics are beauty, skill, inherent meaning, uniqueness, and fulfilled intent. Of these, beauty is the most contentious in that anyone entering a major competition, for instance, will have not just skills but the skill to realise their intention. Inherent meaning may or may not be obvious but a painting is a readable narrative nonetheless and its uniqueness may in fact be its downfall. While I doubt that any judges or arbiters of art reach for the Platonic definition before deciding a winner or loser of a competition, the assumption is that there must a common agreed understanding of the meaning of beauty and that the avowed winner was in tune with it. Or is that a nonsense as well?

Mark Rothko wrote his philosophies of art back in the middle of last century and among other topics he discussed beauty. [Rothko M. The Artist’s Reality ] He considered the prejudices associated with the word beauty, both esoteric and functional, but said that the perception of beauty relied upon an emotional experience albeit not exclusively sentimental or sensuous but having elements of ‘sentiment, sensation and intellectual approbation’. He also suggested that there is a ‘rightness’ to beauty as reflected in ideal proportions and harmoniousness. But, it was still an abstract quality. One possible origin for this abstraction according to certain psychologists is a feeling of pleasure which is closely connected to an infantile desire for security. The forms and shapes associated with this desire derive from the tactile curves and planes of the mother’s body [ibid p 62]. It is those curves and shapes which are transferred to an appreciation in a work of art, or at least any work of art featuring the human body as in the Archibald portrait prize.

Ah! The mother is to blame. In theory, an investigation of the mothers of each of the judges should provide the answer as to what they might vote for. However, each motherly experience is bound to be different so how consensus might be achieved is still a mystery.

And what of the more than one thousand artists who didn’t make the grade in the Archibald? They obviously didn’t fully understand [if at all] the preferences of the judges or the universal abstraction that is beauty. Perhaps they should have done their homework.

Since Plato aligned that understanding of beauty with the divine, which he equated with Eros, entrants might be better off on a spiritual quest before submitting next year’s speculative entry or at least indulge in a prayer of two. Maybe they already do. Raised eyes to the heavens may well be the parting gesture as the van pulls away containing your precious painting.

Interestingly the winners of both the Wynne prize for landscape and the Sulman for genre went to exceptional aboriginal painters this year. It’s about time recognition fell in this quarter however, I’m not aware of any of the judges for 2023 claiming aboriginal heritage or a spiritual connection to land and history. if there was ever a platonic consideration to the judging process then the abstraction Beauty was celebrated this year and there really is a universal paradigm that crosses all cultures. Or was it just the discriminating eye of the beholders at work?

K and C Rothko, The Artist’s Reality, Sheridan Books 2004