Defining Beauty for Men and Women in Portraiture Essay...

Defining Beauty for Men and Women in Portraiture ... A thing of beauty is a joy forever : Its loveliness increases ; it will never Pass into nothingness ... What is beauty? Seemingly a continually evolving and infinitely elusive ideal - mankind has been obsessed with the concept of beauty throughout the ages. Portraiture, as an essential channel of visual communication, has traditionally been the medium through which definitions of beauty are graphically expressed. Particularly in the Renaissance where portraiture often served celebratory or commemorative purposes, it was crucial that portraits were accepted as aesthetically pleasing reflections of the social ideals of the time. Hence by comparing and contrasting a range of†¦show more content†¦Clearly for him the concept of feminine beauty could be defined simply as physical attractiveness. She has no attributes or companion to assert specific personal characteristics. According to Renaissance logic, her good looks are obviously the outward manifestation of her inner virtues of mind and soul. Therefore it is clear that the concept of feminine beauty of this time was directly an d inextricably linked to pleasing physical appearance, the depiction of which viewers derived great pleasure from. Placed in the social context of the time, this type of portrait portraying unidentified, beautiful women in modern clothing was extremely popular in Venice. Common features which bound these portraits into a genre now labelled as â€Å"generic beauty portraits† include the illustration of women with milky alabaster skin, wavy reddish-gold hair, large dark eyes, detailed texturised draping clothing with their figures presented in half or three quarter stance. The combined effect of these different characteristics was to present an‘ideal woman’ – a visual embodiment of the ultimate feminine vixen. Overall the effect was to create an erotic and sensual invitation for viewers to reach out and touch these unattainable images of perfection. Examining portraiture of married women of the time also highlights the differences between concepts of masculine and feminine beauty in the Renaissance. Portraits such as Bronzino’s Portrait of Eleonora de ToledoShow MoreRelatedThe Meaning Of Conceptualization Of Beauty1687 Words   |  7 PagesMorgan Kilmartin Fall 2016 The Meaning Of†¦ Conceptualization of Beauty The term beautiful first appears in the English language around the 14th century with the use of the word â€Å"beaute† in Middle English, derived from the Anglo-French â€Å"beau† with roots in the Latin â€Å"bellus†. The common usage of the term connotes both â€Å"having qualities of beauty† and â€Å"exciting aesthetic pleasure† (Merriam-Webster, 2016). The semantic reference to aesthetics in the term highlights the Greek and Roman influence onRead MoreASAM 5 Notes Essay6590 Words   |  27 Pagesto. Youre just hung up on the way some people try-- its not your way! (123-33) Three Generations and Women Sonnys father, mother, uncle Sonny, narrator, Isabel The school boys and the narrators children We assume things from one generation to the next get better. The narrator questions this assumption over and over again (11). A deep fear of what will happen to his children Women as grounding forces Isabel, the mother The social context This particular story gains power and resonance