1. IDEAL
BEAUTY
a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, esp. the sight
the qualities in a person or a thing that give pleasure to the senses or the mind
satisfying one's conception of what is perfect; most suitable
existing only in the imagination; desirable or perfect but not likely to become a reality.
exactly right, perfect for a particular purpose, situation, or person
Intellectual and aesthetic vs animalistic responses to beauty

2. Polykleitos SPEAR BEARER 440 BCE
His general aim was clarity, balance, and completeness; his sole medium of communication
the naked body of an athlete, standing poised between movement and repose" Kenneth Clark observed.
The renowned Greek sculptor Polykleitos designed a sculptural work as a demonstration of his written treatise, entitled the "Kanon" (or Canon, translated as "measure" or "rule"),
exemplifying what he considered to be the perfectly harmonious and balanced proportions of the human body in the sculpted form.
By this Polykleitos meant that a statue should be composed of clearly
definable parts, all related to one another through a system of ideal mathematical
proportions and balance, no doubt expressed in terms of the ratios established by Pythagoras for the perfect intervals of the musical scale.
SPEAR BEARER
440 BCE

3. Lysippos The Scraper 330 BCE
Commentators noted his grace and elegance, and the symmetria or coherent balance of his figures,
which were leaner than the ideal represented by Polykleitos and with proportionately smaller heads,
giving them the impression of greater height. He was famous for his attention to the details of eyelids and toenails.
First, he establishes a new rule of proportions that differs from the Polykleitan canon: the body of the athlete is slender with longer limbs, the torso is shorter, and the head is only a tenth of the height of the body (heads were an eighth of the height of the body in the Polykleitan system)
The Scraper
330 BCE

4. Women and Goddesses
Aphrodite: depicting the essence of the love-goddess—her body. And thus the business of the sculpture was to reveal essences (the essence of beauty, womanhood, manhood, etc.);
yet, being a goddess, she still had to maintain her distance, hence the ethereal S-curve, the dreamy, sideways glance, and her modest gesture=> constructing the onlooker as a voyeur
Does something/someone that is beautiful have to be perfect?

5. Praxiteles He was the first to sculpt the
nude female form in a life-size statue
His sculptures were known for their feminine
Grace and sensual flesh
Aphrodite of Cnidus
BCE

6. Dying Niobid, c BC, Rome
Museo Nazionale 59 inches

8. Passive women
Active men

9. Plato believed that beauty provokes pleasure.
Plato believed, among other things that relative beauty only exists when you compare objects to each other. If some aspect of an object is beautiful, the whole object is beautiful.
After further consideration, Plato came up the most logical of all the philosophies, that beauty cannot be defined.
Plato believed that beauty provokes pleasure.
c428 – 348 BCE
Idea of reaching to be better, goals – positive thing for society, but difficult b/c never reach ideal – self esteem

10. In the earliest times, it was Socrates that first explored the definition of beauty, he felt that aesthetics was a form of purity.
BCE

11. What role does morality/goodness play in beauty?

12. Aristotle hypothesized that the senses most prone to recognizing beauty are sight and hearing.
c BCE
DO YOU THINK BEAUTY IS EXPERIENCED
BY ALL OF THE SENSES?

13. Are our ideas about “beauty” something we learn?
Culture, MEDIA – Disney, History – body image –
Ancient greeks- pale, light hair

14. Mursi women are famous for wearing large plates in their lower lips, a sign of endurance, maturity and therefore beauty among the community
Read more at
Like other forms of body decoration and alteration found the world over (like ear piercing, tattooing, and circumcision), the lip plate worn by Mursi women is best seen as an expression of social adulthood and reproductive potential. It is a kind of ‘bridge’ between the individual and society - between the biological ‘self’ and the social ‘self’. - See more at:

15. Indonesian Tribal women are Considered more beautiful if they
Have their teeth sharpened to
Points and it is said to also
Maintain the balance between
Body and soul.
As National Geographic reports, a tribe of people in Indonesia believes women are more beautiful if they have their teeth chiseled into sharp, narrow points. In the following clip, the wife of a Mantawaian village chief prepares to undergo the painful surgery, which is also said to maintain the balance between body and soul
Teeth sharpening is a very painful form of body modification that women of South Asian tribes have undergone for many years. It is considered the ultimate when it comes to beauty. The Bagobo women below of Mindanao, the Philippines eastern most island, must have spent many hours of having her teeth chiseled with a stick and some wood…
Read more at

16. Women of the Kayan tribes identify themselves by their forms of dress
Women of the Kayan tribes identify themselves by their forms of dress. Women of the Kayan Lahwi tribe are well known for wearing
neck rings, brass coils that are placed around the neck, appearing to lengthen it.
The other type is one or more spiral metal coils of many turns, often worn only by women. In a few African and Asian cultures neck rings are worn usually to create the appearance that the neck has been stretched. Padaung (Kayan Lahwi) women of the Kayan people begin to wear neck coils from as young as age two. The length of the coil is gradually increased to as much as twenty turns. The weight of the coils will eventually place sufficient pressure on the clavicles to cause them to deform and create an impression of a longer neck. [1][2]
The custom of wearing neck rings is related to an ideal of beauty: an elongated neck. Neck rings push the collarbone and ribs down.[3] The neck stretching is mostly illusory: the weight of the rings twists the collar bone and eventually the upper ribs at an angle 45 degrees lower than what is natural, causing the illusion of an elongated neck. The vertebrae do not elongate, though the space between them may increase as the intervertebral discs absorb liquid.

18. BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER ? Why / Why not?
Are there any universal “beauty” factors?
Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (née Hamilton), who wrote many books, often under the pseudonym of 'The Duchess'. In Molly Bawn, 1878, there's the line "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", which is the earliest citation that I can find in print.

19. Does something that is beautiful evoke emotion?
The concrete and simple Greek concept of beauty was enlarged by Plotinus. He rejected beauty as being merely a formal property.
He describes beauty as not just symmetry, but rather as a quality that moves us.
Does something that is beautiful evoke emotion?

20. As Roger Scruton writes in his recent book, Beauty (2009):
“In the realm of art, beauty is an object of contemplation, not desire.”
Agree or Disagree?

23. BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER ?
Why / Why not?
Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (née Hamilton), who wrote many books, often under the pseudonym of 'The Duchess'. In Molly Bawn, 1878, there's the line "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", which is the earliest citation that I can find in print.

24. Golden rectangle and Fibonacci spiral 5:8

26. Spirals, which recur in Mr
Spirals, which recur in Mr. Chatterley’s work, are a representation of the ancient Greek concept of the golden mean, a ratio, about 1.6 to 1, that is found throughout nature. The ratio can be identified in many of his compositions, and its application will be investigated in a three-part workshop on figurative sculpture led by Mr. Chatterley next weekend.
“The golden mean is everywhere,” he said. “Once you get into it, it boggles your mind.” It is there in “Dirty Dancing,” in the relationship between the length of the torso and the length of the legs, he said, and in “Human Column,” in which each figure is not only constructed, but also positioned in the stack, according to the golden mean.

27. How would you describe these two people?

28. What is the difference between someone that
Is beautiful and someone that is “hot”?

29. malala yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai (Pashto: ‫ملاله یوسفزۍ‎‬ [mə ˈlaː lə . ju səf ˈzəj];[2] Urdu: ‫ملالہ یوسف زئی‬‎ Malālah Yūsafzay, born 12 July 1997)[3] is a Pakistani school pupil and education activist from the town of Mingora in the Swat District of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She is known for her activism for rights to education and for women, especially in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. In early 2009, at the age of 11–12, Yousafzai wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC detailing her life under Taliban rule, their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls. The following summer, a New York Times documentary was filmed about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region, culminating in the Second Battle of Swat. Yousafzai rose in prominence, giving interviews in print and on television, and she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize by South African activist Desmond Tutu.
On 9 October 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus. In the days immediately following the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition, but later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, for intensive rehabilitation. On 12 October, a group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwā against those who tried to kill her, but the Taliban reiterated its intent to kill Yousafzai and her father.

30. In the 18th century the broader concept of aesthetics was first established by British philosophers. Art and beauty were now defined based on the experience of the perceiver.
As Roger Scruton writes in his recent book, Beauty (2009):
“In the realm of art, beauty is an object of contemplation, not desire.”
Agree or Disagree?

31. WHAT DO THESE TWO WOMEN HAVE IN COMMON?
How does the ideal have positive and negative effects on society?
WHAT DO THESE TWO WOMEN HAVE IN COMMON?

34. Barbie’s head would be 2 inches larger than
the average American woman’s and 6 inches
larger than her own waist. Read more
Although she’s long been considered the universal ideal for a woman’s figure, an analysis of her doll-size shape in proportion to a fully grown woman shows Barbie is anatomically impossible and would be reduced to walking on all fours and incapable of lifting anything.
Barbie’s 3.5-inch wrists would make her incapable of lifting anything.
A world-renowned little girls’ plaything, Barbie is supposed to be 5 feet, 9 inches tall and 110 pounds, so underweight that she could not menstruate, the website reports. One of the first editions of the doll, Slumber Party Barbie, even came with a doll-size “How to lose weight” book with only “Don’t eat!” written inside and a scale permanently stuck at 110 pounds. The average American woman is 5 feet, 4 inches tall and 166 pounds.
Barbie’s head, the chart shows, would be 2 inches larger than the average American woman's and 6 inches bigger than her own waist. With a 16-inch waist, “Barbie only has room for half a liver and a few inches of intestine,” the chart illustrates.
Big-headed, busty Barbie would have only size three feet and tiny ankles, which means she’d have to walk on all fours. Her arms, too, would be practically useless, with 3.5-inch wrists. Her long, skinny neck wouldn’t be able to hold up her head, either.
Read more:
She’s so skinny that the odds of finding even one of her incredible dimensions among a random group of women is generally one in thousands — even billions if you consider her waist, neck or wrist size.
The incredible chart is meant to show how ridiculous Barbie is as a role model and the catastrophic effects idealizing the impossible can have.
“Anorexia nervosa is the single deadliest mental health condition,” the website reports. About “5% to 20% of people diagnosed with anorexia will ultimately die from its ravaging effects on the body and mind: cardiac complications, organ failure, and even suicide.”
Read more:

39. REAL LIFE BARBIE AND KEN
Since then the American known as 'real-life Ken' has had more than 100 procedures, from jabs to surgery, at a cost of $100,000
"I've had five nose jobs, done pectoral implants and had bicep implants, which I'm ready to do a third time. I've also had thigh implants, where I also augment the back side and the middle."
REAL LIFE BARBIE AND KEN

42. Do you think beauty provides economic advantages?
The first book to seriously measure the advantages of beauty, Beauty Pays demonstrates how society favors the beautiful and how better-looking people experience startling but undeniable benefits in all aspects of life. Noted economist Daniel Hamermesh shows that the attractive are more likely to be employed, work more productively and profitably, receive more substantial pay, obtain loan approvals, negotiate loans with better terms, and have more handsome and highly educated spouses. Hamermesh explains why this happens and what it means for the beautiful--and the not-so-beautiful--among us.

43. Dove Beauty Project

44. David Hume's Essays, Moral and Political, 1742, include:
"Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them."

45. Resources