The warts and all behind the scenes true story of the supermodel phenomenon.
As far back as Ancient Greek and Egyptian societies, in the times when myths and legends were born, artists have created impossibly high ideals for the body beautiful.
And as our culture has changed over time, so too did the physical idea that humans held up as perfection.
Technology, the digital age and social media may have accelerated the pace of change, but it hasn’t changed the substance of the question: what is the beauty ideal ?
The Ancient Greeks revered naked, athletic, well-defined perfection but knew this was unlikely to exist in the real world. So their artists merged what they considered the ideal features from different bodies — often male and female — into the one form to create the perfect specimen.
Right back to Ancient Greek times, artists had been redefining the notion of the body beautiful and the ideal body shape for women and men. The Ancient Greeks invented the notion of the ideal body, using the human form as an object of sensory delight and as an expression of the intelligent mind.
They had a view that perfection didn’t exist in nature. Perfection was what art gave to nature. The idea of a sculpted body was design. It didn’t take inspiration from one model, but from several models; the arm of one, the head of another, and not only male but female bodies. The biggest compliment you could pay a young man of the time was to say he resembled a bronze God, a statue or sculpture.