Beauty Standards - Who Created Them?
Contextualization answers the who, what, where, when, why, and how. it is the development of a deeper understanding of the environment that creates a topic or event that the project is centered around. It provides a deeper understanding of a topic as it helps develop a complete picture of a situation rather than the event itself. The environments in which beauty standards have been created have drastically changed even within the last hundred years let alone the last 400. My project analyzed the modern-day beauty standards compared to the beauty standards of Rubenesque paintings. By recontextualizing different eras of civilizations and women, I figured out what defined a woman as beautiful. By Ruben's perspective and standards that he illustrated in his artwork, he found the ideal woman to be pale, soft, and nude. That said, in general, painters rarely used models when they painted - Instead, they would draw a woman's image from their imagination because they wanted to paint her in their idealistic light. Now Ruben did paint his wife, but not all his models were real. Compared to today, the beauty standard has shifted dramatically based on completely different environmental factors like food sources, models, and the creation of things like social media and news outlets. I created a project that centered around how there are the same unrealistic expectations of women but they have shifted dramatically since Reuben.
Self in Modern World
I developed an understanding of the relationship between societal beauty standards and how and why they have shifted (for example, being a larger woman represented status, wealth, and beauty in this period – today, larger women represent laziness and a lack of healthy exercise). Examining the reasons why these standards have shifted – who, what, where, when, why, & how especially – was the main focus as context is the foundation of these issues. The goal of my project regarding history was to reflect on beauty standards and examine the contextual evidence that has led beauty standards to become as mainstream as they have. As part of self and the modern world, I analyzed the impact that beauty standards have had on my life: Have I partaken in fitting them; Have I experienced the pressure of them; or have I been responsible for enforcing that we need those standards? I reflected on how impactful these standards have been in my own life and the lives of so many others, especially in this period when social media has influenced so many others.
Art
Understanding why certain models were chosen, or how certain painters would only draw their subjects in a certain way helped develop context as to what they thought was the most appealing or most important part of their art. In my art piece, I collaged a few different pieces of artwork together and I painted over them because I reworked it as my own but took strong inspiration from other artists and their viewpoints of women. My goal was to reflect on the stupidity of beauty standards and how unattainable they are by recontextualizing different art pieces. For example, the base of the painting is the creation of Adam, one of the most famous pieces of all time. Recently, someone redid it with black women and recontextualized the painting in their own rights. On top of that, I photoshopped one of the women from Ruben's painting. Then, I inserted pictures of artwork that a talented young artist created to expose women's insecurities and remind them that they are still beautiful. All of these different perspectives and contexts are combined to reflect the message: The beauty standard has shifted so many times that it is impossible to nail down what it truly is and define one woman as beautiful and one is not.