Essay The history of facial/body aesthetic interpretations pre-21st century

[Alurmo]

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The pre rennaisance periods of beauty
ancient egypt​

My first speculations on the origin were ancient Greece, but I discovered there was a society before that, the great ancient Egyptians, and upon researching their ideas about beauty, it became clear, they indeed had great instincts for beauty, as they had inclinations for immortalizing what they thought were beautiful, however unrealistic, they valued facial beauty, and it shows

As seen by Queen Nefertiti in all her beauty

Although by today's standards this may be seen as a mtb, back then it was the peak aesthetic*

The invention of ideal ratios could be classified as being born in Egypt, as the Egyptians made the proportional canons which held influence upto the Renaissance era

This posed the idea that the world has ratios and there could be perfect or near-perfect ratios

a New start in the ancient world

Ancient greece
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And after the Egyptians went, so along came the amazing Greeks, who could have derived their interest and cultivation of beauty from the Egyptians, and followed in the Egyptians' footsteps. Ancient Greece went through 3 major periods of inventions and appearance: the archaic, the classical, and the Hellenistic period

One of the important eras, in my opinion, is the archaic period. It was the foundation of the future of the Greek aesthetic. Firstly, the Greeks abandoned the geometrical forms of the Egyptians and opted for a more earthly art, a more natural appearance and interpretation of art.

From my research, there were many depictions of young men and what the ideal young man looks like
mostly being called kouroi statues, they were modelled after the attributes of Apollo (the god of order/the sun), and thought to be the epitome of excellence at the time, kourois had broad shoulders, narrow waist and long hair, since sculpting was a aristocratic and long art, it was reserved for the best gods who could offer the sculptor his dreams, so this sacred art resulted in a beautiful appearance of sculpture for the reason to give to the gods

Moving onto the classical period, the importance of looks became more apparent, and art began improving rapidly due to competition between sculptors, as well as the fact that the Greeks had many gods that they wanted to represent in human form, almost like a way to give the public an idealized version of man to strive towards
This era of Greek sculpture produced, in my opinion, some of the most aesthetic works man has ever seen

But then what could be the source of these incredible creations of man with his proportions, well firstly in the ancient age it could be a good muse, as well as the works of pythagoras's influence on the sculptor, and talking about pythagoras he played a great deal in the mathematification of beauty, saying that beauty could be explained through mathematical laws and laws of proportions, and yet again in the modern sense these are all ratios more or less

What is admirable of this period was how far they came from the Egyptians, going from rigid grid systems where the human figure was pasted onto a grid to estimate each part of the body to the grid, to the ancient greek sculptors who instead chose first what they can see by looking at good looking athletes and then after that trying to calculate how parts of the body related to the rest in their definition of proportion

The age of Vitruvius​

Skipping over the hellenistic period which was a rehash of the classical period without the creativity, the greeks were eventually conquered by the romans, in that period many sculptors were destroyed as a result of greece being used as a battle ground, for a while teh sentiment around greek art was seen as destructive until a sudden shift in mentality, which made the attitude towards greek art more positive, as in ancient rome where the architect, vitruvius, was leaning towards a greek attitude towards art, but with a great deal of symmetrical and proportional insight, calling human figure a building and a great human figure a perfect building
Vitruvius created the facial third system as well, expanding on this idea in his book called 'on symmetry

‘For the human body is so designed by nature that theface, from the chin to the top of the forehead and the lowest roots of the hair, is a tenth part of the whole height;... the head from the chin to the crown is an eighth, andwith the neck and shoulder from the top of the breast to the lowest roots of the hair is a sixth; from the middle of the breast to the summit of the crown is a fourth.If we take the height of the face itself, the distance fromthe bottom of the chin to the under side of the nostrils is one third of it; the nose from the under side of the nostrils to a line between the eyebrows is the same; from there tothe lowest roots of the hair is also a third, comprising the forehead.... The other individual parts, too, have their own symmetrical proportions, and it was by employing them thatthe famous painters and sculptors of antiquity attained to great and endless renown.

Unbeknownst to vitruvius his works would survive to the Renaissance period to be dissected by the analysts of the future

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The new innovators

Leon Battista Alberti​

From what ive read the rest of the ancient roman parts isnt that relevant so im travelling to the period of the renaissance, which had a nack for antiquity, it showed in its art, which depicted the figures of the socratic school and the people of athens through paintings, perhaps a superior means of art compared to marble for some, the first figure of discussion is Leon Battista Alberti, again a architect like the former figure, he held great knowledge, known across the european rennaissance era, his opinions on beauty was unique at the time and i quote from his definition of beauty

Beauty is a form of consonance of the parts within a body(manifested as proportional correspondence in the partsand in the whole), according to number, shape and position, such that nothing may be added, taken away oraltered, but for the worse, as dictated by the absolute andfundamental rule of Nature.

his interest in paintings also made him have a interest in human proportion, causing him to write that human proportion holds great relationship to beauty

‘care must be taken above all that all the individual parts[of the body] accord well with one another ... one mustobserve a certain conformity in regard to the size ofindividual parts.

As Nature clearly and openly reveals all these proportions, so the zealous painter will find great profit frominvestigating them in Nature for himself?

The biggest invention of Alberti was his idea of ideal proportions through rigorous measurements. I commend him in this because, according to the source, he measured aesthetic people directly for this and numerically created a system of proportion

Leonardo da Vinci​

Leonardo da Vinci, a figure from the Renaissance era who also held weight, his name is known across many spaces, also had his theories on beauty, but his approach was more facial, with him mapping out the ideal ratios of the face, as well as contouring the Vitruvian Man, which is an interpretation of the previous figures who tried at what is 'ideal'
Da Vinci learned the most about beauty in his Milanese period, where he came up with his own theory of art, with a combination of his notebooks and sketches, Leonardo attempted a great stick at finding the ideal facial proportion

You could say in a way da Vinci was the og looks analyst, as he went out of his way to understand what is beautiful

Albrecht Dürer​

Still in the same period as da vinci, he was also a artist, and had great interest in beauty, but his opinions on beauty differ, as he thought there was no absolutes and no ideals in beauty, he believed in a form of relative beauty, instead of a singiluar principle for the ideal, he presented a array of proportions based on body type
Although he was not native to the Italian taste, he learned from the classical writers of Italy, fulfilling a destiny and continuing the search for the ideal proportions
Dürer's works laid the foundation for fields in the modern era; his 4 books on human proportion are still a significant source of knowledge to this day.

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The enlightened taste ​

During this period of intellectual high thought, many great concepts evolved, like dimorphism, averagenes, the importance of specific features, and how they connect with each other, great theories that still hold weight
The error of this era was trying to copy the previous eras too much.
Like always rome had always left its mark on outsiders, seen by Durer and in the Enlightenment through Audran
Audran, after studying in Rome for a few years, measured and studied the relationships between statues to find the ideal

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The craniometry era of aesthetics​

The biggest figure in this is Petrus Camper, as he developed the facial angle, and to add to that, he created the Camper's plane, which is defined as this, by quoting the source

angle is formed by the intersection of two lines: the vertical linea facialis, from the front of the maxillary incisor teeth to the most prominent part of the forehead, and the horizontal line from the nasal base (or anterior nasal spine in askull) to the mid-tragus of the ear (or middle of the external auditory meatus in a skull)

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Proto-modern facial aesthetics​

The creator or father of modern craniofacial anthropology would be Leslie Farkas, with his resources in the field, leading it in a good direction
His book, called ANTHROPOMETRIC FACIAL PROPORTIONS IN MEDICINE, left its great influence on a lot of fields

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Other topics



the golden ratio​

With the course of history, everything has been made mathematical and measurable, now of course this fate would happen to faces, resultin gin the idea of the golden ratio, altough the golden ratio is a very interesting topic and one thats still ongoing, wether its true or not, i dont have the geometrical capacity to discuss it, i mean i barely understand it

Is beauty even objective, or is it in the eye of the beholder?​

As we can see, aesthetics drives humans to incredible measures, writing up theories, experiments, and measuring craniofacial bones to the T, but then what drives this is it the search for an objective truth, or just a rationalizing of the person's preference

For the subject to find the object he's looking at beautiful, many processes happen, like the person's sensory enjoyment or ocular enjoyment, depending
on their own ideas, feelings, and judgments, which themselves have a direct relation to the evidence they have with the ocular sense
This would mean aesthetics itself is a subjective philosophy, as it depends on what the person finds enjoyable. Ultimately, all the ratio talk can be chalked up to the rationalization of the subject's interest or enjoyment in certain ocular appearances

In all this theres a paradox that can be found tho, since there are faces we all can call beautiful, it means that facial beauty is related to some quality of the observed face, which is seen as universally accepted or beautiful
However, each individual’s own ideas and feelings, like a conditioned response, also have a direct relationship to their judgment, hence the difference in the extent of rating a face asbeautiful depending on the eye of the beholder

So my understanding of facial aesthetics up to this point and our discussion of it is purely philosophical, bc of the fact that our theories and concepts cannot be directly and physically tested, thus making it not a science