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Is art becoming beautiful again? Oh no!! What will happen to abstracts?

Do you remember the days when the Turner Prize ignited a firestorm of controversy? When the fag butts, empty vodka bottles and used condoms that surrounded Tracey Emin's notoriously unmade bed had the nation up in arms – even though it didn't win? Well, not any more. This week, the artist Richard Wright won the £25,000 cheque that accompanies Britain's most prestigious annual art prize. His contribution to this year's exhibition? An incredibly intricate painting in gold leaf that covers an entire wall of a gallery inside Tate Britain like a bolt of the finest damask wallpaper. A glorious, eminently civilised work, it looks gossamer-delicate, as though it has been woven out of sunbeams. For anyone who thinks that contemporary art is nothing but the dreck and detritus of perverted imaginations, Wright's painting provides a beautifully lucid counter-argument. It speaks of the exaltation of the human spirit, of our finer instincts and loftier ambitions, of the ability of the soul to soar and sing. It heralds nothing less than the return of beauty to modern art.