canny granny

Beauty is not in the Eye

Have a look at the painting Venus at the Mirror by Rubens. Called Beauty is in the Eye, it’s in the post immediately before this one. Does the woman posing as Venus, Goddess of Beauty, seem attractive to you? Then look at the photo in this post.

Is this model on your left your idea of beauty? Are you in line with modern trends where emaciation is seen as beautiful?

Feast your eyes on one of today’s beauties, a model, a paragon of pulchritude, an inspiration for all young girls everywhere to emulate.

I believe the look is called ‘heroin chic’ although the reason why heroin, a dangerous and illegal drug, would be considered chic escapes me.

I must be old fashioned. The photo nauseates me. If this young woman were my daughter I would have her in hospital instantly. I’ve seen healthier looking and more attractive people in the terminal care ward.

Beauty is in the Eye

Painting : Venus at the Mirror: Rubens. 1615

Is Venus beautiful? Is the woman modeling for the artist beautiful? Back in 1615 she was.

The model is Hélène, wife of the artist.

Peter Paul Rubens was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish and European painter, a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality. Rubens is known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. And for paintings of his young wife.

In 1630, four years after the death of his first wife, the 53-year-old painter married 16-year-old Hélène Fourment, an acknowledged beauty. She inspired the voluptuous figures in so many of his paintings from then on.

Cleopatra and the Coin

I still say that Cleopatra was beautiful. I know there’s been disparaging remarks made about her nose before, but this coin reveals that she had a pointed chin, thin lips and sharp, aquiline nose. (Somewhat like myself in fact.)

Better than Marc Antony anyway, with his bulging eyes, thick neck and nasty-looking hook nose.

This tiny coin shows the head of Marc Antony, while Cleopatra is on the reverse. The image on the coin is far from being that of Elizabeth Taylor, but old Marc bears a strong resemblance to Richard Burton.

Roman writers merely said that Cleopatra was intelligent, sharp-witted, possessed of good humour and with a wonderful laugh. No one ever said she was beautiful.

How is beauty defined anyway? Would a voluptuous beauty like Hélène Fourment, wife of the artist Rubens, be judged less attractive than one of the emaciated super models of today? Is gaunt beautiful?

Only in America

1. Only in America … do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

2. Only in America … do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.

3. Only in America … do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.