Big'n'beautiful

Writing in The Telegraph, Alastair Sooke identifies a return to beauty with Anish Kapoor's large show at the Royal Academy and Richard Wright's Turner prize-winning gold-leaf mural. Sooke sees the return to beauty merging as a reaction to the 'boorish antics' of Hirst, Emin et al. He also argues that in troubled time we seek things that are "luminous and orderly" - "There is a greater thirst for beauty than there has been in recent years, and this is the result of an increased appetite for art that offers an antidote to doom and gloom."

It appears to me though that part of the appeal of these works is sheer scale, and colour. It's often claimed that the punters don't like abstract art because it's "too hard". As with Yayoi Kusama at City Gallery Wellington, when abstract meets spectacle, you appear to have a winning combination.

Yayoi Kusama, City Gallery Wellington

Anish Kapoor, Royal Academy, London

Richard Wright, Turner Prize, Tate Gallery, London