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Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder - Part 2
To just give you some interesting information about the changing ideals of Beauty
In Tokugawa Japan, the most beautiful woman has long epicanthic folds with extremely fair skin. Brown haired people would dye their hair black.
Romans remarked on the propensity of the Gauls of dying their hair white, a process that left their hair dry and brittle. For the matter, blonde wigs and to a lesser extent African wigs would later be popular among the roman aristocracy.
In the Middle East (atleast according to the translation of the original Thousand and One Night), handsome men and women had similar features, with white skin, dark long brown hair and large black eyes. Also, they were supposed to be fat. (atleast according to Ibn Battuta).
In Medieval Europe, a beautiful woman would have golden hair, milk white neck, a pale complexion and be fat. She would look something like the painting of Eve, I forgot the name, one of the earliest medieval painting.
In India, a beautiful woman would have extremely slim waist and large breasts. The complexion that was preferred were mixed - some preferred light skin and some dark. This changed after the Islamic invasions when the standards of beauty definitely shifted to the Persian ideal.
I am not sure exactly what was historically preferred in Africa. I would love it if someone could tell me exactly what it was.
While in the last post, I talked about the standards of beauty, I would like to caution that ideals of beauty do shift. Some of the actresses in the 1930s would not be considered beautiful today where some of the more of the natural look of the 70s (high cheekbones, large lips) have filtered down to become today's ideal. Beauty is also associated with power which can be seen in the emulation of the upper class. One of the reasons tanning became popular was only the upper class could afford travel and could become tanned enough, at least in the western world during the 50s. In East Asia, plastic surgery to get rounder eyes got popular only during the era of Western influence. Similarly, in the Middle East, dying one's hair blond or nose surgery became popular only during the last 50 years. It is interesting to see that in South Asia, you see the shifting of ideals from the Mughal ideal (white skinned, large black eyes, more persian and northwestern Indian features (a roman nose) who were previously associated with power to more of a Western ideal (tanned skin, light eyes, being skinny) which explains the rise of many dark skinned actresses in Bollywood with light eyes, especially with more caucasian features (ie without hooked noses).
That is not to say, West had no influence from the East. Some of the 'in' look in fashion is Latin and Jessica Alba, who is actually half latino, is considered the hottest woman on earth which would not have happened in Hollywood, before. The ideal in hollywood has definetely moved from an emphasis on complexion and a hour glass figure to basically skinniness.
A huge portion of the beauty ideals in our era are influenced by power. Who know? If East Asians suddenly dominated the world, petite women who look asian might be considered the most beautiful thing in Hollywood.
This does not mean that all beautiful women are arbitrarily chosen. Some beautiful women are considered beautiful, even if they are not considered to be 'orthodox' beauties. Sometimes, I do see people, who in Renaissance times, might be considered really beautiful but who today, just look ordinary to many people. But they would not look ugly, as such and we are too programmed for beauty and symmetry for that to occur.
Anne Boleyn was considered to be attractive even though her beauty was considered 'unorthodox' - she had black hair, olive skin and extremely black eyes during a time when a ghostly complexion was preferred yet she never stopped being attractive to all the people who met her. We all know that one person, who might be extremely attractive, but who would never be put in a magazine for beauty.
Beauty is like the nature/nurture debate somewhat - half nature and half nurture. Models who are put in the magazines are not ugly, they may be average but they are not ugly. Similarly, even if we look back at the European paintings, we notice many things we like even though we would change some things like weight if we paint her in now in our world.
To put it simply, really beautiful and ugly people are same throughout the ages. It is those who are usually in competing levels of attractiveness about whom this dialogue can take place.
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