The embodiment of beauty
Like many other concepts, through the evolution of humankind, the canon of beauty has been changing with time. Related to flesh and bone, these beliefs had transformed from prehistoric art until modernism, and their course was even more rapid in the postmodern era—it is enough to take a look at models from the ’50s onwards to compare how societal standards of the ideal body have been shifting every decade until today.
The aesthetics of the female body in different epochs was embodied by the goddess of love and beauty: Ishtar in Babylon, Inanna in Mesopotamia, Aphrodite in Ancient Greece, and Venus in Ancient Rome. However, while the image of the ideal woman’s body is conventional with respect to society, it is rather subjective with respect to the person. Thus, Rubens’ Venuses do not look the same as Artemisia Gentileschi’s Sleeping Venus or Anthony van Dijk’s depiction of the goddess despite the fact that they were contemporaries.
Once again: Venus revisited
In our times, in which so many efforts have already been done to invent new languages and symbols, we are tied up with breaking up old patterns. Nonetheless, still, there are strings attached to Ancient art. We are inevitably influenced by our previous experiences, even if they become available to us through collective memory. It can only be wondered to which degree this postmodern—and probably delusional—sensation that we have seen it all was proper for painters of past ages, but here we are. And now, no more backgrounds in the Classicism style are needed, the teal color has the potential to incite the imagination to create valleys, castles, roads, or whatever you want to see there. To a certain degree, all secondary details become superfluous. The New Venus leaves the possibility for an experience of contemplation that is as personalized as her tattooed body. So that, the pleasurable contemplation of the beautiful—as an extremely individual act—is in no contradiction with Venus’ prominent individuality. And in the end, recalling classical beauty still means to recall sublime sophistication and elegance, which, no doubts, are matters beyond time.