A Crisis of Beauty

BEAUTY MATTERS IN OUR LIVES

I’ve always had a keen sense of beauty. I’m good at making spaces and things beautiful. It’s a true, deep necessity for me. I hate haphazardly designed things and messy tablescapes. Plates and linens better match, if you want to eat with me.

Beauty not only makes life more attractive. It gives it intention and a touch of the sublime. In my life, it introduces harmony and peace together with a certain flair that makes everything more worthwhile.

Right now, though, the world feels the opposite of beautiful.

OUR CURRENT CRISIS OF BEAUTY

The status quo feels like we’re the farthest away from beauty in our lives in a long, long time. Politics is bufoonish, decided by men in ill-fitting suits without manners of spirit. The world is going through a deep crisis and everything seems to get messier by the day.

Beauty is the opposite of that.

Beauty, and not in the sense of overlined lips, is what connects us to the core of our humanity. It’s the moment of “wow” when you look at something that is absolutely stunning, be it another person or a beautiful lake. It touches us at our core. It’s unruly, unexpected, and - to a certain extent - unplannable; just like waves of emotions washing through us can be unpredictable.

EVERYTHING LOOKS PRETTY - AND BORINGLY SIMILAR

What we’re witnessing at present is the erosion of the sublime in our visual worlds. A couple of years ago, I read Byung-Chul Han’s Saving Beauty. In it, he makes an interesting argument: that of beauty having lost its edge. Instead of transforming us, it’s been turned into something smooth and pleasing. As smooth, for example, as the clean, sleek design of a smartphone or white, spacious digital designs.

Things now look attractive and well-designed. I enjoy that, certainly. It’s also tremendously boring. Visual meaning has been eroded, flattened, washed out by commercial interests and algorithms.

Current forms of what’s considered good design repeat endlessly throughout the digital realm and real life: From websites with white backdrops and sans serif-fonts to the similarities in coffee shop design across the world, and the wide-leg jeans trend in global fashion.

It’s all the same: pretty and boring.

On the one hand, some people may appreciate the predictability in this. I suppose it’s nice to be able to go from London to Lisbon and Capetown and revel in the comfort of the familiar design of the interior of a coffee shop (Kyle Chayka talks about the frustrating sameness of coffee shops here). On the other hand, it deprives us of local flavor and a depth of perception and experience.

This sameness robs us of the opportunity of an encounter with something that’s more than just the function of beauty. It takes away enjoying something for itself, without a purpose or agenda.

These worlds are commercial and communicative before they are emotional or transcendent.

Beauty has taken on a marketing function here. It’s always had that, in a way. I, too, prefer buying something that looks pretty over a wonky design. With the algorithms and digital life this has taken on a new dynamic, though. It’s hollowed out our concept of beauty and when to engage with it.

IT’S THE ALGORITHMS, DUH?

Taste has become globally flattened. Algorithms — and this is why I’m most frustrated with them — steer our thinking about our perception. This is different how the media of yore would create trends or fashions. It’s individual, it’s meticulously timed, and it’s intended to get you to take a certain action. Most often, that action is to scroll more.

Algorithms do more than shape the distribution of content online. They curate our tastes and our worldviews.

They also shape deeply how we perceive the world, what we consider interesting, and the type of visual stimulus we respond to.

I’m using visual stimulus intentionally here. They way images or videos prod at our attention is very different to an in-depth interaction with something beautiful. One is short and superficial, seeking to get our glance or attention. The other is profound and transformative with the power to alter the trajectory of our lives.

Case in point: Some people say that encounters with places like the Sistine Chapel or the Mona Lisa are life-altering. That’s a far cry away from a life-altering video thumbnail on Instagram.

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RECLAIMING BEAUTY

I’m not writing this to be a hater of the digital realm, entirely. If you’ve been following my work over the past years, you know I’m critical of its current manifestation. There’s a lot to be changed to make social media a healthier, more productive environment for humanity.

And yet, these changes are here. What we can do now is push back and reclaim our agency in the face of them.

Reconnecting with beauty, to me, is one of these things. It’s much more than looking at pretty stuff. It’s about reopening ourselves to profound, meaningful experiences. Beauty has the capability to eject us from the hamster wheel and into a different mode of being, if only temporarily.

Beauty is unruly. It’s meaningful and profound. It’s surprising. Sometimes, it finds us in unexpected places and contexts. Yet, we can only connect to it when we’re open to it and willing to cultivate it.

And despite what we’ve been used to, true beauty is independent from commercialization. You can experience letting yourself enjoy the way the light dances on the surface of water. Or, you can bring it into your home by purchasing a work of art that’s beautiful to you (like mine that I will offer in the future 😉).

Both work. They’re nonexclusive.

What matters is that we intentionally make more space for whatever is beautiful to us in our lives. It’s key to recreating meaning. And it’s a key to our salvation as a species.

Beauty is about doing things for the sake of it, just because you want to and it makes you feel good.

I’m about to have lunch in a moment. I’m going to set the table and make it look beautiful. For no other reason than me enjoying that.

Talk soon,

Johanna

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