Beauty is fleeting. According to the dictionary, it is interpreted as ‘a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form that pleases the aesthetic senses.’ Or, it can mean ‘a combination of qualities that please the intellect or moral sense.’ In reality, beauty dances around, defying definition. It is a subjective term and thus has such a multitude of definitions that the most popular remains, “I know it when I see it”. Despite its ephemeral nature, beauty is the keystone in all compelling pieces of art. As such, an attempt must be made to define beauty, at least in-so-far as the visual arts go. For the sake of this essay, beauty is not a combination of pleasing qualities but rather a combination of intriguing qualities. For the art viewer, beauty is the compulsion to keep looking; for the artist, beauty is art-making’s intrigue.

For an artist, to turn one’s back on beauty means to abandon the force that drew one into art to begin with. Regardless of current practice, it is the rare artist that didn’t start doing art as a child, delighting in figuring out form and developing a sense of visual problem-solving. Instinctively, children recognize beauty. ‘Is it good?’ they ask, knowing very well that parents always say Yes, but also wanting the validation that they have solved a visual problem. There is an inherent strife in art that has nothing to do with concept, and that is the problem and pursuit of representing some sort of beauty. For an artist, it is the intrigue of beauty that is chased, else the art loses spark and becomes academic, confronting problems that have already been solved.

In a finished art-piece, beauty is the visual magnetism that encourages a prolonged encounter with the work. Beauty doesn’t necessarily manifest in visual pleasure, but it is always visually compelling. Beauty continues working on the viewer after they have paused to consider the work, worming its way into the brain, tweaking this or that emotion and starting concepts ripening. Beauty is what makes a piece of art intriguing, and as such is the most important element in a work of art. If the artist can’t hook her audience, then they will have no reason to linger in front of a piece and, in terms of public consumption, the art is useless.

Critics say beauty is irrelevant, that what matters is the conceptual power of the art piece. But, I would argue that our definition of art has changed throughout the years and that our definition of beauty should change as well. If we can admit that there is an inherent difference between art works, and that some art is more intriguing than others, than perhaps we can define that indeterminate magnetism as beauty. As such, beauty remains the most important quality in a work of art. I stand by beauty.