The Ideal Beauty

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“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, is a very famous quote by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford. Martin, Gary. ("Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder." Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder. The Phrase Finder, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2014) This quote means that many different people see beauty in their own way. Beauty can be found in many different forms such as personal appearance, nature, personality, art and architecture. Modern societal values and those of the ancient Greeks hold both similar and different ideals of beauty. Today we value beauty most often as hair, body shape, money, and face. Ancient Greeks valued beauty as a sum of parts formed into a coherent whole with symmetry, harmony,and proportion as the key elements. (Sartwell,Beach) We can see the ancient Greeks ideal of beauty given physical form through their statues, architecture, and paintings. Women are the major focus in terms of the physical display of the ideal beauty. In today’s modern world women just go out and get plastic surgery to correct perceived physical faults, dye their hair to the desired color, or artificially tan to get a darker skin color. However, back in ancient Greece women would stay inside to become paler to retain a lighter skin tone. They used sheep grease for foundation, and like today they would pluck out unwanted hairs to get their natural hair line. (Valentine, LaNae. "Beauty through the Ages | Recapturing Beauty) Each era has their own and different ways to define beauty. There are many different philosophies of beauty in each era because people try to interpret the real meaning of beauty. Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates are three very important figures from ancient Greece whose philosophies on beauty capture the views of that era on beauty. P... ... middle of paper ... ...r current definitions of beauty Today Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines beauty as : 1 : the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit : LOVELINESS 2 : a beautiful person or thing; especially : a beautiful woman 3 : a particularly graceful, ornamental, or excellent quality 4 : a brilliant, extreme, or egregious example or instance One can clearly see the classic Hellenic elements of beauty such as purity, the value of the whole impact of a person or thing that provides pleasure to the senses, the quality of excellence or goodness. These classic ideals of beauty were first proclaimed by the classic ancient Greek philosophers and the fact they are still found in today’s definition of beauty has proven those concepts to be timeless and eternal.

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