BEAUTY editorial Upon opening this journal, you are greeted by a scene painted by Claude Monet, titled Impression: Sunrise. The hazy, atmospheric quality of the scene is characteristic of Monet’s work, and that of other impressionist painters who worked with rapid brush strokes to capture the ephemeral qualities of light and color en plein air. The blurring of the painting’s subject—the port of Monet’s hometown of Le Havre—led him to give the painting the title Impression, as “it couldn’t really be taken for a view of Le Havre.”1 While the emergence of the Impressionist movement can be considered as reflective of a shift in stylistic preference in the late 19th century, a recent study suggests that something else was at play in its formation: the Industrial Revolution and associated proliferation of smog and air pollution in European cities. In that study, climate scientists Anna Lea Albright and Peter Huybers note the evident progression over time from object to blurred atmosphere in Monet’s paintings. They also cite letters by the artist himself expressing his interest in and creative reliance on fog (the term ‘smog’ had not yet been created), “[W]hen I got up I was terrified to see that there was no fog, not even a wisp of mist: I was prostrate, and could just see all my paintings done for, but gradually the fires were lit and the smoke and haze came back.”2 Viewing the endpapers of this issue may or may not feel different to you now, after becoming aware of this study. Does it matter if the impressionist haze of Monet’s paintings was smog, or that he was relieved by the renewed presence of air pollution, which, centuries later, has amalgamated to create the climate crisis we now face? Is Impression: Sunrise less beautiful as a result? There is of course no definitive or correct answer, and our respective answers likely differ. Beauty as a term and concept is complex and enigmatic, and it evades concrete definition. It can be appreciated visually and intellectually, taking on different forms and meanings in different cultures and contexts. It is the elusive nature of beauty’s definition that serves as the point of departure for this issue of LA+. This issue opens with a piece by Mariagrazia Portera, in which she explores the philosophical evolution of our understanding of beauty in the context of biological evolution and our present climate crisis. As humans, we are deeply entangled within our environment – perhaps more so than any other species, as our efforts to shape it to meet our needs and desires grip the entire planet. In return, this planetary crisis will inevitably shape us and pose not only existential but also aesthetic questions and dilemmas as environments change and species migrate and evolve to adapt to a warming world. Opposite: Photographer Dan Piech spent four years searching every section of sidewalk in Manhattan to document accidental moments of overlooked beauty going unnoticed beneath New Yorkers' feet.
Perhaps, then, beauty in our present time isn’t benevolent, peaceful, or comforting – the limited definition and framework simply does not accommodate the depth and breadth of unpredictable environmental change to come. Yet the notion of beauty as something other than peaceful or comforting also has its place in history and mythology, as Luke Morgan writes in his piece centered on the enchantress Circe.
