07 the European Ideal Beauty

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The European Ideal Beauty

The European Ideal Beauty of the Human Body in ArtA Short Introduc tion to European His tory & Culture

By G. W. Cichon-Hollander

The ideal of the perfect human body is a result of culture: religious functions, economy,advertisment, and other factors.

The definition of beauty is not an immanent and objective quality of things, since every age, placeand social class formed its own ideal of it, ideal beauty is corresponding with the aesthetic feelingof people of a respecting period.

"History of art" as a relatively young science earlier was called subjectively "aesthetics". Art wassupposed to evoke religious contemplation and/or sensuos and mental delight, as the ancientpoet Heliodor postulated.

However according to the great historian Ranke the task of anhistorian is plainly "to tell as it really was..", and not his ownopinions or feelings.

Actually nowadays we are not any more allowed to callsomething objectively beautiful, only "to me it is beautiful" or "Ilike it", especially since art expresse the disorder and confusionof mankind.

It seem, that there is no more ideals and "anything goes"...

Now I am delighted to go on a short trip through our history ofculture with this exquisite audience!

Prehistoric Times

This is a photograph of the so called Venus of Villendorf inAustria from prehistoric times, about 20.000 years ago. It isbelieved, that it had ritual functions concerning fertility.

It does not correspond very much to our present sense of anideal body, because we expect beauty to evoke sensuous andmental delight as an image of harmony and perfection.

This sculpture is small in size, only approx. 11 cm of limestone, but great in design, as it is veryelaborately composed and carried out.


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1. "Venus of Willendorf"

10.000-15.000 b.c. Austria

limestone, 11,5 cm; Vienna

Ancient Egypt

Some 3 1/2 thousand years ago in ancient Egypt, this, part ofan ivory chest, was decorated with a carved relief of a gardenpromenade of Tut-anch-Amun an his wife Anch-es-Amun.

We see a unique and refined fashion, delicate and fastidious aneven, slim female body.

The ladies were shaved entirely! (Sometimes even theirheads!) And to emphasise this, their pleated skirts were wornwide open in front!

2. Ankhesenamun, Wife of Pharoah Tut

~ 1350 b.c.; Cairo; Ivory chest (part ~ 30 x 20 cm)

Antiqu ity: Ancien t Greece

This well known drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, about 1500,relates to the only achitectural treatise at all, to survive from

Antiquity, by Vitruvus Pollio. Although it is unillustrated, itprofoundly influenced art throughout history, especially in theperiod Renaissance.

Vitruv, in the first century b.c., reports the classical ideal of beauty as derived from symmetry anda modular relationship, of the parts to the whole on a mathematical basis. (The smaller partcompares to the larger as this to the whole: this is called "The Golden Section" or the "Golden

Mean".)

(AB cut at C, so that CB:AC =AC:AB; about 8:13).

3. Ideal Proportions

Leonardo, ~ 1500, afterVituvius (Vitruvian Man)1st C. b.c.; Venice, Acad.

Architecture was seen as animitation of nature with


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anthropomorphic - that is human - proportions! Vitruv distinguished the three column types asDoric, Ionic and Corinthian, the proportions deriving respectively from a man, a matron and ayoung girl. Art and science (and also nature) were considered as completely homogenous, as a

unit.

Socrates postulated, that the main task of the artist was to give a standard idealised contour ofthe human body in exact proportions to gain Balance and harmony. We can still admire this in thestatue of the "Aphrodite of Melos", better known as the "Venus de Milo", one of the most famousworks of art history...

4. Venus de Milo

2nd C.b.c.Paris, Louvre

... in the same way as this beautiful ideal image of a man's body, the so called "Warrior of Riace",

found in the Mediterranean Sea a few years ago, now in Naples.

These personified ideals of classical beauty have influenced art throughout the centuries untiltoday!

5. Warrior of Riace

Bronce, South ItalyOver 2m high; Reggio di Calabria

Antiqu ity: Hellenism/Anc ient Rome

The Hellenistic conception of art derived from natural life, as theRomans were more pragmatic than the Greeks. It was realistic andtherefore allowed the first individual portraits in history.

Here we have "Aphrodite Kallipygos", goddess with beautifulbuttocks, made about 100 b.c.

For the first time the rear is thefocus of attention, the mainview.

6. Aphrodite Kallipygos

Marble, ca. 1,50 mCopy of ~ 100 b.c.; Naples

Early Middle Ages

In these genesis scenes of the "Grandval Bible" from the earlyMiddle Ages, about 840, we can see, how the consideration of


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physical characteristics, the proportions and harmony of the design, has becomeunimportant. The human being lived religiously, beyond earthly reality, in aneschatological world awaiting God.

7. Caroline Bookpaintry: Adam and Eve

Grandval Bible ~ 840; London, Brit. M.

Late Middle Ages

Here we see the paradise scenes on a miniature from one of the most beautiful books ever made,called " Les trs riches heures du Duc de Berry", a prayer book of the French king's brother,originating from about 1400.

An enormous change in art has taken place. We see the socalled "Beautiful -" or "Soft Style", a luxurious, refined fashionagain, with a slim silhouette.

Uniquely the ideal of a beautiful female body was having a bellyand looking pregnant!

8. Trs riches heures: Paradise

Praying book of the Duke of Berry:Limburg Bros. ~ 1440; Paris

Early Renaissance

This is the famous "Birth of Venus" by Sandro Botticelli, 1486.


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The Renaissance intended to revive the classical antique style of symmetry and proportions astheir ideal of beauty. The treatise of Vituv inspired the world. At the same time the artisanchanged from a craftsman to a scientist and intellectual.

9. Birth of Venus Sandro Botticelli ~ 1486; Florence, Uffiz.

Now attention is drawn vehemently from religious to profane, worldly themes, for the first time inhistory except in the Hellenistic era of Ancient Rome. The ideals of "Humanism" that we seepersonified here in the painting of Giorgione "Sleeping Venus", Venice 1505, had an immenseaffect until modern times, as well as this special invention of a reclining nude!

10. Sleeping Venus Giorgione, Venice, 1505; Dresden


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Late Renaissance

11. Diamond Mine Maso da San Friano ~ 1570;

Florence, Pal. Vecchio

A painting in the style of late Renaissance, alsocalled Mannerism. The painter shows scenes of adiamond mine in the excessive manner ofexaggerating, for example human limbs, far awayfrom classical proportions.

Even this is Mannerism style, at beginning of 16th century! Imust not withhold this extraordinary and singular ideal of aperfect male body from you, that was pursued by all gentlemen of the era, like this one with an

arrow by Cranach.

12. Portrait of a Gentleman with arrow Lucas Cranach ~ 1530; Dresden

Baroque

What a Baroque splendour! Here the "Wife of King Kandaules" by Jacob Jordaens, contemporaryof Rubens. Their ladies' stout, luxuriant and voluptuous bodies became proverbial!

13. The Wife of King Kandaules Jacob Jordaens 1646;

Stockholm

13 a. The prey of the daughters of Leukipp; P.P. Rubens;Munich


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Here is charming Leda of the Italian "Commedia dell'arte" by Franz Anton Bustelli, who lived inMunich, one of the most ingenious sculptors of 18th century!

14. Leda f. Commedia dell'arte, F.A. Bustelli, porcelain, ca. 20 cm

Early Romanticism

Again very famous paintings: Maya, the only nude by Goya,and to compare the "Dressed Maya". Now, in anotherclassicistic era, the "Empire", the ideal again approaches

Antiquity with a flowing silhouette (you may compare thecomposition with Giorgiones Venus!).

15. The Mayas Francisco Goya 1798; Madrid, Prado

Classicism

What perfect bodies Ingres shows us on his huge painting! Two antique divinities, Jupiter andThetis, with classical proportions of beautiful athletic bodies.

16. Jupiter and Thetis


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Jean Dominique Ingres, ~ 1810~ 330 x 260 cm; Aix-en-Provence


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Romanticism - Orientalism

Half a century later in a new epoch, we have the same artist with a different

sense of beauty: soft curves and magical fairyland was discovered in the art ofthe middle of 19th century.

17. Turkish Bath, Ingres, 1862108 cm; Paris

Impressionism

Toulouse-Lautrec's painting "Ball at Moulin Rouge" shows onegeneration later in the epoch of Impressionism the new fashionof slim waist again, but the "fin de sicle" has something uniquein addition: the "Cul de Paris", the "Parisian Bottom", thebuttocks are emphasised again after almost exactly 2000

years!

18. At the Moulin Rouge, Toulouse-Lautrec, ~ 1890 Philadelphia Coll. McIllhenny

Art Nouveau/Jugendsti l

The new fashion in contrast called "Jugendstil" or "Art Nouveau" liberates the body contours fromcorset once again, as a hundred years ago. Here we see Hodlers huge painting "The Day II" of

1905.

19. The Day II Ferd. Hodler, 1905 ~ 160 x 360 cm; Zurich

Expressionism: The roaring Twenties

After the horror of the First World War only practicability isimportant. In the era of "Bauhaus" and the "Roaring Twenties"the difference between the sexes vanishes for the first time inart history. Curves are no longer an ideal, as here in the

"Dancing in Baden-Baden" by Max Beckmann, 1920.

20. Dancing in Baden-Baden

Max Beckmann, 1920;Munich

Modern Era

Finally - another work of the


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so called "Classical Modern Era", the "Reclining Female Nude" by Modigliani, 1917, a beautifuland ideal body for us. In contemporary art the variety is vast an there seems to be no moreuniversal ideal. Nevertheless the charming curves of Modigliani still delight our senses.

21. Reclining Female Nude Amadeo Modigliani, 1917; Milan

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07 the European Ideal Beauty

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