Elaine Scarry: Universal Beauty
The common physical beauty is what Elaine Scarry called “a symmetry of everyone’s relation to one another” in her book called On Beauty and Being Just (1999). This means that beautiful subjects or objects are evenly proportioned and ideal in all their forms. In other words, if symmetry is perfection, then beauty is perfection too. At the same time, as absolute symmetry does not exist- beauty is a divine feature of “chosen”. Meanwhile, I have my own interpretation of physical beauty. This is the idea of beauty that is not just a physical appearance of a person or object. This is the universal “beauty” I was talking about in the introduction of the paper. In my opinion, physical beauty that relates to the beauty of objects or subjects
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We should take into consideration the aspect of those things and people thought of as beautiful tend to be appreciated more by society. The reason is that this kind of beauty is determined not from an aesthetical or physical point of view, but from a societal perspective. In this case, one of the simplest examples can be the trend on women’s bodies. In the Renaissance period being fat meant to show the value of the human body and pureness. Women were considered beautiful and sexy if they had healthy plumper figures unlike skinny thin models are considered nowadays. The historical evidence for this is well documented in the pieces of art and literature. For example, women portrayed by Peter Paul Rubens represent the body weight preferences of Europeans at those times. In his paintings The Judgment of Paris (1632) and Venus at a Mirror (1614) all of the women are over-weight or obese, which was considered attractive. At the same time, Venus portrayed in Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (1485) painting, is very thin and skinny that contradicts with the well-known common standards of beauty in the Renaissance. So, it is hard to say whether Ruben’s and Botticelli’s painted women represented their personal preferences or those of their people and their times? Hence, we can’t be absolutely sure if people really respected fat women more than thin ones. This leads us to the conclusion that the society dictates specific standards, but the real personal attitudes may be different. Although, who knows? Anyway, that proves my last dimension of beauty appreciation that plays an important role in this
We should take into consideration the aspect of those things and people thought of as beautiful tend to be appreciated more by society. The reason is that this kind of beauty is determined not from an aesthetical or physical point of view, but from a societal perspective. In this case, one of the simplest examples can be the trend on women’s bodies. In the Renaissance period being fat meant to show the value of the human body and pureness. Women were considered beautiful and sexy if they had healthy plumper figures unlike skinny thin models are considered nowadays. The historical evidence for this is well documented in the pieces of art and literature. For example, women portrayed by Peter Paul Rubens represent the body weight preferences of Europeans at those times. In his paintings The Judgment of Paris (1632) and Venus at a Mirror (1614) all of the women are over-weight or obese, which was considered attractive. At the same time, Venus portrayed in Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (1485) painting, is very thin and skinny that contradicts with the well-known common standards of beauty in the Renaissance. So, it is hard to say whether Ruben’s and Botticelli’s painted women represented their personal preferences or those of their people and their times? Hence, we can’t be absolutely sure if people really respected fat women more than thin ones. This leads us to the conclusion that the society dictates specific standards, but the real personal attitudes may be different. Although, who knows? Anyway, that proves my last dimension of beauty appreciation that plays an important role in this