Visits to National and V&A Galleries

 I decided to go to the V&A and the National galleries to look at how artists from older eras pictured attractive humans in their work. The few that interested me the most were those that presented very opposite ideas of beauty to present day presentations. 

The first image shows a collection of rather voluptuous, curvy women walking around in the nude. Compared to well known photographs of our present day models, they would probably be labelled as plus size. Perhaps, during the time of the painting's production, it was a privilege to be well fed and therefore showed that the woman was probably from a wealthy family which was very attractive. 

The Death of Eurydice by Niccolo Dell'Abate

At the bottom right corner of the above image, we can see quite a muscular old man leaning casually on his side. Similar to this man, we can see in the image below that this depiction of the Holy family has, a much older, Joseph looking over at his wife, who is a lot younger, breastfeeding a baby Jesus. It shows the idea that older and younger men were more accepted and appreciated through visual representation in paintings as well as, during that era, the possibility of it being far less irregular for an older man to marry and have children with a woman. 

The Madonna of the Cat by Federico Baurecci

Some strong, beautiful male characters from old mythical tales were depicted as very elegant and almost quite feminine. I'm not sure whether this was the artists' idea of attractive or, at the time, grace and youthful features in men was very much appreciated. Either way, one was effected by the other.

Apollo and Zephyr by Pietro Francavilla

Cupid Kindling the Torch of Hymen by George Remi

If I had more time, I would have recorded more ideas for the project and perhaps visited a few more galleries to see if there were any other contributing factors to the same themes I was finding. However, I am quite glad with what I've come across. From this, I've learnt a lot about past influences in traditional art by the ideas of what is seen as attractive and also the contrast in today's ideas of beauty.