We are in a rather special summer, but not even the new normal has been able to reduce the pressure we feel (especially women) and that makes us adopt crazy routines in order to show off a body of scandal. But the ideal of beauty that the "bikini operation" pursues is subjective and changing. And, in other times, the sylphs that we have today as references would have received the most absolute of indifference, just as art has reflected. Next, we offer you a journey through the history of beauty and how it has been immortalized for eternity.
Guide to be sexy in any period
The attraction for the beautiful is an intrinsic quality in the human being. From the most remote times, humans created their own canon that was changing and evolving over time. For a long time it was thought that paleolithic venus, statuettes representing anonymous women with wide hips and large breasts, embodied the aesthetic ideal of the time, the preferences of prehistoric men, theories that were eventually discarded. We cannot know for sure the usefulness of these statuettes, but everything seems to indicate that they would be related to female fertility.
What we do know for sure is the canon that developed in the area of Egypt, where beauty was directly linked to harmony and proportion. To be considered a beauty, an Egyptian woman had to be slim, with a small chest and wide hips. The Egyptians were very fond of jewelry and makeup, although the reasons that led to the use of the latter were not merely aesthetic, since it served as an insecticide and sunscreen. For the eyes, for example, they used khol, which not only beautified but also served as eye drops. In addition, in ancient Egypt waxing was the order of the day and was practiced without distinction of genders. All these customs are reflected in the bust of Nefertiti, Akhenaten's royal wife, whose name literally means "the beauty has arrived."
The attraction for the harmonic and the symmetrical was maintained in classical antiquity. The Greeks related beauty directly to mathematical proportion and took it to the extreme. Although one could not expect less from a civilization capable of intentional imperfections to achieve visual harmony, as they did in the Parthenon. Mathematical calculations were also applied to the proportions of the human body, establishing its perfection by taking the head as a measure: a perfect body was equivalent to seven heads (as Polykleitos established it), which later became eight. The feminine beauty went through the robustness, the small breasts, the oval face and the wavy and collected hair, as represented by the Venus de Milo.
The arrival of the Middle Ages brought a radical change in the conception of the aesthetic ideal: the strength that Christianity acquires relates the beautiful to the spiritual, since what really matters is the salvation of the soul. The medieval ideal of female beauty corresponded to women with long blond hair, slim bodies, and small hands. Contrary to what happens today, white skin was an ideal, since it was related to the purity and virginal condition of the maidens. In the case of men, being handsome was directly linked to having the bearing of a true gentleman.
Although without forgetting the medieval memory, the Renaissance arrives and fixes its gaze on classical antiquity. Now feminine beauty continues to be associated with fair complexion and blonde hair, but ideal body shapes become more and more rounded as they are associated with health and fertility. Simonetta Vespucci, Botticelli's muse and protagonist of his Birth of Venus, is a good example of the kind of beauty that is pursued in this age. In addition, it is now when the cult of the classic body is recovered, so nudity and sensuality are the order of the day in art. Thus, mathematical proportion and formal perfection are pursued, as shown by the anatomical studies of Leonardo da Vinci and its culmination in the Vitruvian Man.
But the triumph of the curve comes, as expected, in the Baroque. The female canon now acquires a much more natural vision, in which cellulite and meaty bodies are the order of the day, as a synonym for health and social position. The nudes of Pedro Pablo Rubens are the most faithful example of the type of body shapes that this period pursues. Comparing his version of The Three Graces with that of Lucas Cranach the Elder, an artist of the full Renaissance, allows us to see how effectively the way in which both imagine the ideal female figure is very different.
In addition, the Baroque began the period of the flirtatious and the pompous, popularizing in terms of fashion the use of wigs and abundant makeup among both men and women. This pomposity will be taken to the extreme with the arrival of the Rococo, although with greater lightness than in the previous period. And this is exemplified by the paintings of Francis Boucher: it is not even necessary to place his Bath of Venus next to some representation of the goddess in classical times to instantly notice the differences to which we refer.
To all this, the corset comes into play, an element of women's fashion that practically became a real nightmare for those who wore it. Although it suffered a brief decline, at the end of the 19th century it reappeared and gained much strength. We include him in this journey through the aesthetic ideal (especially the feminine one) because he came to modify the body of women, adapting it in an extreme way. In this sense, the Gibson Girls canon stands out, marked by the satirical illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, who responded to women with athletic bodies and especially narrow waists. What began as a satire, ended up becoming the feminine aesthetic ideal in the United States and Canada.
Since then, the changes in the conception of female beauty have been almost constant. The 20th century arrived full of new ideals: from the flappers of the 20s, revolutionary women who wore comfortable clothes and used to be especially slim, to the curves in the 50s, with Marilyn Monroe on the cinema screens as the indisputable reference. From the 60s until now, the ideal seems to have been based on progressive thinness, to extremes often criticized as excessive.
So now you know, the next time someone suggests that you have a few extra pounds or asks you to join the blissful “Operation Bikini”, tell them that you are not into meat and that you simply follow the Rubenesque canon.
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