Looking at the portraits of some of the most beautiful women in history and reading about how impressed they were men and how popular they were, we came pretty hard sometimes to understand why.
Perhaps these women were charismatic, or that the definition of beauty was not the same as our guiding us today. If we think of today looks like a beautiful woman that you consider and compare it quickly with Mary Stuart, who became queen of Scotland in 1542, we will understand more easily how related concepts of beauty have changed over time, can also be do a review of the standards imposed by society.
They say that the theory that women should be beautiful and powerful men is the result of several centuries of evolution.
Designed Beginnings Wellness
In ancient times, the most important aspect in choosing partner was health . Men to cope with hunting and to support the family, had to be tall and have a large muscle mass. Women, on the other hand, to be able to lead a task to complete and to cope with childbirth, wide hips and needed big tits.Therefore, in a time when the patient has little chance of survival, beauty is a healthy body, able to meet vital needs.
By the century of Pericles, fifth century BC when Athens became the center of development knowing a great cultural, political and economic fabric of all Greece, there was no clear definition of beauty.Before painting and sculpture to develop massive beauty was attributed to other virtues such as truth, loyalty, harmony . However, when artists began to paint or write, began to outline some features that, if a person or an object you have, you deserve to be called "beautiful".
Greek philosophers were the first people who asked what makes a person beautiful. Plato, who sawbeauty as a result of symmetry and harmony , created the "golden proportion" in which, among other things, the ideal image width was considered as representing two thirds of its length, and must be perfectly symmetrical face. Now, after more than 2,000 years, scientists have tested the theory of philosopher and concluded that it was right: we are attracted to symmetry.
But the Greeks were not just obsessed with symmetry, but also long blond hair that is associated with youth and fertility.
The Romans borrowed many elements from Greek, especially in culture. Therefore worship and they find women with long blond hair. To discolor hair, women in Rome used a mixture of beech ash, goat fat, vinegar, pigeon droppings and saffron. In many cases, the use of this solution led to total loss of hair.
The beauty takes shape
In the Middle Ages female beauty has become a more complex in western Europe. In an era where women were seen as "predators" who are just waiting to win a man to dominate their concerns to fashion were classified as living proof of carnal challenge. Most criticism came from the clergy, who opposed women's habit of wearing jewelry.
Women, once married, were obliged to conceal their hair so as not to arouse desires in the minds of other men. Only virgins were allowed to wear their hair disheveled. In addition, blond hair was not appreciated, considering the collective mentality that sends hair color to debauchery. So the women began to close their blonde hair color with lye.
Only at the end of the Middle Ages, with the Renaissance, artists began to rebel against moral and religious ideas imposed by the clergy and seek pleasure in the imagination. Renaissance discovers, through painting, two concepts that strong shaking thinking artist: technical perspective and the human body.
We are dealing with a past valuation principles. Purity and youth are valued and artists, beautiful regain his canons of ancient Greek period.
Renaissance art is its own appearance in a new obsession, namely the breasts. Nudity gets even religious images or the mother . One of the most popular ideas is that of the Virgin nursing the Child. Although Mary is painted with dezgolt chest, her only once adulthood is that it became a mother, remained untouched, a symbol of beauty.
The idea of being able to see a woman's breasts or cleavage was much more accepted now. Instead, she was criticized if they knowingly exposed ankles or shoulders.
Pale skin , distinctive element that heighten the sense of purity, was also easily removed in the Renaissance. Until then, cheeks reddened and riots were a sign of sin.
However, white cheeks has not exhausted its charm. Although the time has lost meaning, pale face was in vogue until the twentieth century as a sign of beauty and good taste.
The Tudor period in England, although women should be both beautiful and healthy, fulfilled , can give rise to heirs, men prefer women with small breasts. Most evident proof of this are dresses that keep women tied down.
Supporter of the skin was pale and Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII. Although his father have mixed tastes in women, Elizabeth wanted to restore the image of the Virgin Queen and and managed. Also, Elizabeth brought back into light body proportionality and made beautiful women to be judged by the thickness of the ankle .
If in the seventeenth century Puritans makeup and dresses decorated labeled as sinful, supporting women's rounded forms, the century that followed was one in which the emphasis is on pleasure and bodily, women are considered as a kind of beautiful. A century later, matrix changes and beauty.Beautiful women are neither weak nor fat, with a very thin waist. The hair becomes and the more valuable accessory, being worn in large buns, oversized and powdered . It caught up with ribbons, bows and feathers, and the height and volume bun family wealth was evidence that the woman fired.
In the Victorian era, pale face is again highly valued, so that guards fire at the fireplace fireside or become popular. They are designed to prevent her cheeks reddening ladies who sit near the stove.
However, the element of beauty in the Victorian era was the size .
Underlined the bodice, which help women to get appreciated hourglass, size must have, on average, 40 centimeters . In this case, many women suffer from a respiratory failure or malfunction of some internal organs.
Even more dangerous than the bodice was a tool of iron was used to shape the nose.
Venus in exile, changing canons of beauty
The twentieth century brought more and more rapid changes in the concept of beauty, keeping many of the customs of the Victorian era, but creating new ones, even more painful or more bizarre than the previous ones.
In the '20s, women's curves are no longer fashionable. linen correction , and burtierele is an important accessory that no woman should be in the wardrobe. So somewhere down the line waist hips.
The most visible element that makes women to be beautiful was the haircut. Hair was straight and cut to the ears, both as a sign of beauty and as an expression of desire for equality between the sexes.
In the '30s bob haircut and hair disappears stretched and loose bearing and loops arranged briantină. Then in the next decade, with the dawn of the Second World War, the fashion capital moves from Paris to New York. The period of austerity required to support the war, made the naturalness to be assessed, and the feature was long hair female.
Early 1960s is a dummy symbol Twiggy, who has two defining features: height 1.67 m and a weight of 48 kg . This is the first time that beauty is not defined as health, but by sexuality and fame. Hence, cosmetic and plastic surgery are "tools" main woman in his way to the ideal.
XXI century beauty is taken to extremes, where everything is allowed and nothing is shameful. The hair may be left behind, trapped in bun or even absent, as an important link to the concept of beauty is now attitude.
Throughout history, the concept of beauty has revealed the company, the way she thought and action. Always there was an interdependence between how cultural ideals of beauty and was seen in society.
Now, scientists in Hong Kong say that men beauty cataloged according to volume-height index .
The index is calculated by dividing the square of body volume height (distance from chin to heel) and assume that it indicates not only the attractiveness of the female sex, but also health and fertility.
Therefore, in future it is possible that cultural ideals about beauty canons to limit the parameters calculated based on the role of establishing the degree of sexual attraction and that of fertility.
In such conditions, it is not surprising that recent studies argue that women are more attractive and increasingly more likely to give rise to a large number of children who reached maturity and are themselves beautiful .
