What The Eye Arranges

Exploring "Beautiful" (Sunday in the Park with George)

Jack Wolfe and Jenna Russell, 📸: Danny Kaan

Pretty isn’t beautiful, Mother.
Pretty is what changes.
What the eye arranges
Is what is beautiful.

This lyric, from Sunday in the Park with George’s “Beautiful,” is among Sondheim’s most adored—and with good reason. And what Sondheim wrote about these words, decades later (in Look, I Made a Hat), is equally moving:

It’s still a favorite lyric of mine, and I think I know what it means.

The humility in Sondheim’s reflection—that tentative “I think”—speaks volumes about the nature of the truth he captured in these lines. It’s a truth that is almost impossible to articulate, but which reveals itself anew—if only for a fleeting, precious moment—each time you encounter this number.