Your Thoughts On Art

[Belacqua]

Yes, those sound like good criteria.

The rest, if it's truly nothing but personal judgment, seems not to be something debatable.

I'm surprised you didn't point out that my two criteria are also pretty subjective.

I'm doing my best to avoid seeming hostile. 

I do think that absent any further way of specifying what exactly counts as "aesthetically satisfying," the term ends up being a way of saying "I like it" that is only slightly more descriptive. It narrows down what you like about the painting to just -- how it looks. As opposed to, I don't know, how it covers the stain on your wall.

For example, people might say that they like something because the colors are beautiful. But without any rules for what constitutes beautiful color, the term "beautiful color" becomes a synonym for "colors I like." 

I am not saying that we can or should describe such rules. Only that a lot of the terms we use end up being little more than tautologies.