Thursday 15 October 2009

Rough Essay Notes

Beauty as Cultural Fiction

(Using Phil's feedback from last week)

Basically, as mentioned in my previous post (The idea of perfection) i would like to explore the idea of beauty- what is true beauty? where does this idea come from? etc

  • Dorian Gray- story about the hypocrasy of beauty (that it really only is skin deep), however, it was written at a time when the idea that someone's personality could be derived from their face, was gathering scientific credibility.
  • Physiognomy
  • Scientific Racism
  • Face Transplant Documentary

An agreed version of beauty to which other versions can be compared favourably- e.g. Greek profile compared to Asian profile. (Would like to use the Greek reference after studying this in Classics at GSCE and A-Level.

  • 'Rule of Beauty,' - anything different from this cannot be as beautiful, and therefore inferior. This is an ongoing idea- Look at red heads compared to blondes etc.
  • Put the idea of beauty on trial- (demonstrate a basic understanding of these ideas and select portraits, illustrations, drawings etc to enrich my argument.

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