HOW ART INFLUENCED THE IDEAL OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN

 

video: Ideal standards of WOMEN'S BEAUTY around the world

FROM ANCIENT STATUES TO SELFIES,

art reflected and imposed beauty standards

CRITERIA OF BEAUTY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

Nefertiti - Egypt, New Kingdom, around 1350 BC

Firm lines, eye makeup, red lips, rich accessories - the Egyptian ideal had great influence in the ancient world. Egyptian art was the first to define female beauty as an artistic theme.

THE MODERN PERIOD
OF CRANACH A Boucher
The Three Graces - Lucas Cranach the Elder

An element of pre-Christian mythology, the Three Graces were a fashionable theme during the Renaissance. Cranach's depiction emphasizes sensual, supple lines with soft lines. Muses have small breasts, unshaven pubes, and sexless hair.

Boucher's paintings shift the emphasis from form to color in defining the feminine ideal. Reddened cheeks, a sign of delicacy, but also of health, are a novelty introduced by roccoco. (The motif will also be taken up by the Romantics and will survive in standard Romantic art, until the "juna Rodica" of the Romanian sower - nn). Still in Roccoco, the lips become an intense red, instead the skin is a marbled white, to illustrate the delicacy and decoration of women, as they were designed at the time. This is the very era that defined beauty as “utility”.

Sport and vitality in modern centuries

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Night, 1883

The beginnings of modernity were announced during the Belle Époque by redefining exemplary beauty both by highlighting musculature and emphasizing sexual characteristics (breasts and hips).

Musculature (a sign of vitality) and the marking of sexual characteristics will dominate artistic models for centuries to come, evident in 20th and 21st century art (photography and performance), from Robert Mapplethorpe to Amalia Ulman and her Instagram selfies. It is an ideal with narcissistic traits, based on the postulate that “nature is only an imitation of the artificial”.

Other cultures, other canons

The Aphrodite of Cnidus by Praxitelles has only survived thanks to copies. The ideal of beauty in the Greek world from the 4th century BC. BC was dominated by round, soft lines, illustrating its power to give life.


8 centuries later, Roman mosaics bear witness to another ideal, that of an active life, also common in the 20th century. In India, the art which consecrates the feminine ideal placed much more emphasis on the implementation value of sexual characteristics: big breasts, big hips. , well-defined lips, but also thanks to the characters who are often caught in dance steps.

Beauty is not absolute. It's a cultural construct

The female standard canon for being a perfect woman has changed in different places, times and cultures. The differences are enormous, from the Egyptian woman more than 3000 years ago to today's woman, through the ideals of oriental, African, Arab, Mayan, European and even oceanic beauty, mentioning different tastes and customs in hairstyles, makeup and physical complexion. Whatever the proportions, fashions are always different, even within the same society, so there is no single standard of external beauty; only passing trends to answer women's eternal question: how to be more beautiful in order to love more.


An interesting project was carried out by Buzz Feed in 2015. The studio made reconstructions with live models of the ideals of female beauty from different eras and cultural spaces. Unfortunately, the video does not have subtitles. For minimum indications, see below.

video - the perfect woman from antiquity to postmodernism

Ancient Egypt (c. 1292 - 1069 BC)

Ancient Egyptian society was sex positive and premarital sex was completely acceptable. Art from this era of ancient Egypt tells us that long, braided hair was an important aspect of female beauty.

Ancient Greece (c. 500 - 300 BC)

Aristotle called the female form “a deformed male,” so yeah — ancient Greece was pretty male-centric. Nudity was a common part of ancient Greek society, but sculptures and paintings of nude women were often covered.

Han Dynasty (c. 206 BC – 220 AD)

During the Han Dynasty period of Chinese history, female beauty meant delicate, slim bodies with a radiant inner glow. Women were expected to have pale skin, long black hair, red lips, white teeth and a graceful gait with small feet.

Italian Renaissance (c. 1400 - 1700)

Beauty in Renaissance Italy meant a rounded body, with full hips and large breasts. Pale skin, strawberry blonde hair, and a high forehead were all considered the pinnacle of physical beauty.


authorized translation from French (COMMENT L'ART A INFLUENCÉ L'IDÉAL DE LA BEAUTÉ FÉMININE)

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for other eras, see the project on Buzz Feed (EN) > https://www.buzzfeed.com/eugeneyang/womens-ideal-body-types-throughout-history?utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=bfsharecopy&sub=0_4773202#4773202

other sources > B-Critic (RO) > https://www.b-critic.ro/category/arte/