“The great artists are the ones who dare to entitle to beauty things so natural that when they’re seen afterward, people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?”
– André Gide
On Beauty in Retrospect
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Tag Archives: Beauty
On Genuine Poetry
“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”
– T.S. Eliot
Impossible to Tell
Slow dulcimer, gavotte and bow, in autumn,
Bashō and his friends go out to view the moon;
In summer, gasoline rainbow in the gutter,
The secret courtesy that courses like ichor
Through the old form of the rude, full-scale joke,
Impossible to tell in writing. “Bashō”
He named himself, “Banana Tree”: banana
After the plant some grateful students gave him,
Maybe in appreciation of his guidance
Threading a long night through the rules and channels
Of their collaborative linking-poem
Scored in their teacher’s heart: live, rigid, fluid
Gaunt [Adj.]
Skinny, angular and bony; emaciated; bleak, desolate.
‘Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.’
– Gerard Nolst Trenité, The Chaos
On The Erased Idea
“The painting is finished when it has erased the idea.”
– Georges Braque
The Chaos
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word. Continue reading
On Bouillon Cubes
“Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.”
– John Le Carre
Ideal Female Bodies (iv)
Swinging Sixties (c. 1960s)
Women in the 1960s benefited from a liberation movement that saw more women in the workplace, gave them access to birth control pills, and gave rise to feminism. “Swinging London” had a profound influence throughout the western world during the 1960s, and it helped usher miniskirts and A-line shapes into fashion.
Supermodel Era (c. 1980s)
Jane Fonda created an aerobics fad in the 1980s, which made women want to be fit. Supermodels like Cindy Crawford typified the ideal body of the era: tall, slim, athletic, but still buxom. This era also saw an uptick in anorexia, which some experts thought might have been tied to the sudden emphasis on exercise.
“I’m no model lady. A model’s just an imitation of the real thing.” ― Mae West
Heroin Chic (c. 1990s)
After the materialism and overexertion of the 1980s, fashion swung the other way. Thin, withdrawn, and pale, Kate Moss typified the heroin chic look in the 1990s. Heroin use actually rose during this time, causing President Clinton to comment on the trend in 1997.
Postmodern Beauty (c. 2000s – Today)
Women in the 2000s have been bombarded with so many different requirements of attractiveness. Women should be skinny, but healthy; they should have large breasts and a large butt, but a flat stomach.
To achieve all this, women have increasingly been turning to plastic surgery. Studies have shown that butt augmentation procedures, patients under the age of 30, and patients citing selfies as a reason for plastic surgery have all increased in recent years.
See other: Ideal Female Body Types Throughout History
Knowledge Guild 