The concept of beauty is very subjective. What is beauty? Each of us has its own answer to this difficult philosophical question. Beauty cannot be measured, you can only admire it. The wisest people of the world passed many years in disputes about what is true beauty and why you need it. So, Cicero thought that beauty is an inherent property of health. Chekhov thought that in the person everything should be perfect: the face, appeared and the soul. It is hard not to agree with these words. However, you can be ugly, but very charming. A Frenchman and a true connoisseur of feminine beauty Charles Montesquieu used to say that women have the only way to be beautiful – to be born beautiful, but to be attractive, there are hundreds of thousands of possibilities. For example, professional cosmeticians and plastic surgeons argue that there are not really ugly people in the world.
English aristocrat Francis Bacon believed that the beauty is always a flaw. A connoisseur of human souls Honoré De Balzac echoed, saying that perfect beauty definitely has its flaws, as stupidity or coldness. Our aesthetic preferences depend on lifestyle, upbringing, education and has a huge number of factors. The first ever beauty contest was held in Belgium in September 1888, and the first Miss World beauty contest was held in London in April, 1951. Beauty is the force that moves the world.
Nowadays, people think that in a person everything should be beautiful: the body and the soul. Beauty starts with a beautiful inner awareness. In addition to physical beauty in human culture has developed an understanding of the moral, spiritual beauty. This category is applicable to people irrespective of their age and sex and relates to the wisdom, fairness, balance, human decency.
Beauty never had specific characteristics and definitions. Each era had its own standards that regulated the concept. In the past centuries, the skin of a beautiful woman was supposed to be white. Today, a woman who spent a lot of time on the beach or in the solarium, is considered perfect. Beauty is a relative concept. The ideal of beauty in ancient Egypt was a slim and graceful woman with light facial features (Eco 32). Thin eyebrows and a small straight nose with full lips and big eyes painted with black ink, and lighter skin was the Etalons. The most beautiful eye color was green. But a green eye color was a rarity, so the Egyptians painted eyes in green by carbonic cuprum. And to emphasize their beauty, women in Egypt painted nails and feet in green. The ideal of beauty in ancient China was a small, frail woman with tiny legs. Their legs remained small, because the girls shortly after birth bandaged their feet tight, seeking to halt its growth. Women painted their faces in white. Their cheeks they made red. They used to paint their eyebrows with black. Red nails were considered a symbol of dignity and wealth. In ancient Greece there was the cult of the trained body. The ideal of beauty was the harmony of body and spirit. The Greeks believed the order and symmetry were the symbol of beauty (Eco 45). Noble ladies in Greece loved cosmetics. They used powder, lipstick, and blush. In ancient Rome, the cult of fair skin and blond hair dominated. In Rome, women began to bleach hair. In the middle ages, the Earth's beauty was considered sinful. It was prohibited to show body. Bleaching hair proclaimed the wicked activity. The figure was hidden under a layer of heavy fabrics, the hair covered with a cap. The ideal of a beautiful medieval woman was reflected in the Holy Virgin Mary. She had a long oval face, large eyes and a small mouth. During the Renaissance, pale complexion and a high pure forehead were considered beautiful. The main emphasis on Rococo era was done on styling, this is a time of miracles of hairdresser's art. Modern demanded new standards of beauty. Interesting women just had to be nervous, passionate and demonic. The concept of femme fatale became spread in a society. It was the time, fashion for women short haircuts that showed a slim neck was formed.
Now life has changed, and changed the concept of beauty. Since the end of the last century, the most prized were intelligence, energy and ability to make money, and the main asset of women is freedom. Fashion historians, however, agree that in the future, it will be possible to define the 20th century as the century of short women's hairstyles and worship of dystrophy.
Standards of beauty are changeable, but at all times, the beautiful people were healthy people. The path to beauty is constantly based on the personal approach. The economic, political situations, religion were almost the main factors to form ideals of beauty in a society. The ideals of beauty have changed from epoch to epoch: at different times and different women different things built in the canons.
Works Cited
Eco, Umberto. History of Beauty. New York: Rizzoli, 2004. Print.
