Historical Views of Beauty

Judging beauty is deciding whether you want your kids to carry that person`s genes," says Texas University psychologist, Devendra Singh. (Newsweek, 1996). This brief explanation sums up the reason why we perceive beauty. Today, sexual selection may not be in the forefront of people and their perception of female beauty, but it was millions of years ago and this perception has evolved as greatly as one may think. One of the best indicators of a culture`s perception of an ideal female body may be their artwork. For example, in the Sandro Botticelli painting, in the 13th Century, the Birth of Venus, one can see the goddess of love, Venus, standing nude in a large clam. Her body is athletic and muscular. She has a smaller chest, and heavy hips and thighs. Her face has soft, round features, much like the rest of her body. She also seems to have an impossibly long neck and the slope of her shoulder seems a bit unrealistic. However, The Birth of Venus is still a classic example of how the perception of female beauty at a certain time in history can be ascertained by studying artwork.

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