What is Beauty?

For Rubens’s contemporaries, the ideal female form was rotund and women did not say “I want to lose weight” that often. Today, fashion has changed and attraction is dressed in more supple forms. Between the two temporal markers, a lot of figures were at one time the “ideal of femininity”: the romantic century belonged to diaphanous thin girls. The feminine silhouette in the 20’s turned to sports-shaped silhouette, and then she had her posterior contoured, waist narrowed and bust enlarged.

In recent years, women are accustomed to perceiving beauty in comparison to the size of teen models that are very tall and thin … what should we expect in the decades that come?

photo credit: visiophone

The canons of beauty

Is trying to look good a way of self expression, a way to attract attention or just a sacrifice on the altar of fashion? Well sometimes it is a tribute that demands many sacrifices, from torturous regimes and long hours on the motorized treadmill to expensive and sometimes traumatic surgery. In other words, what are the canons of beauty and where do we stop in our desire to imitate what we say is beautiful?

Regardless of your attitude, it seems that “very thin” is not trendy anymore. Many wonder if perhaps this is due to soap operas “Made in South America” and South American actresses with their well-drawn shapes. Miss Universe 2008 was won by a woman from Venezuela and the second and third places went to Colombia and the Dominican Republic.

Are men perceiving women as a symbol of fertility once more? Today’s beauty is linked to health, nature and ecology.

The world is changing, we are changing, and we need to live healthy and be aware that fashion and trends are just distractions that are supposed to make us feel good. The problem is that they do not really succeed if taken to far.