What is Physical Beauty?

            What makes a person beautiful? Is it their eyes, their smile, the shape of their body? Or is it their personality, intelligence, and demeanor? Is beauty completely subjective, or does a universal ideal beauty exist? What are the factors that play into physical beauty?

            The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines beauty as “the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.” In other words, beauty is a highly desirable quality that gives the observer deep satisfaction.

            Beauty is often thought to exist in “the eye of the beholder” which suggests that it is highly subjective. It is very much dependent on individual perception. However, there are variables that contribute to perception, such as culture, and biology.

Venus at a Mirror, Rubens, c.1615

            If we look at history, there are many examples of art that depict what was considered beautiful at different times and in different cultures. These works of art also show that what was beautiful in the past does not always correspond to what is generally considered beautiful today; and what is beautiful in another culture is not always beautiful in ours. For example, in the painting “Venus at a Mirror” by Rubens (c. 1615), the artist depicts the Goddess of love, Venus, as a plump, fair-skinned woman. This same Goddess was often depicted as a much more slender figure in other times. On the other hand, in ancient Egyptian art, as well as in Asian art, women are most often illustrated as slim figures because in those cultures, at those times, that is what was considered desirable. In addition, skin color has been an ever-changing factor in female beauty. Fair skin was considered desirable in Elizabethan era England because it represented wealth. Women with fair skin were viewed higher class because to achieve fair skin, one must remain mostly indoors, away from the sun, which means that such a woman has likely not been required to work outside on a farm for example. Also, the product used to powder the face white was very expensive, which only a woman of means could afford to use regularly. In more recent years, there has been an increasing trend for sun-tanned skin color. This originally started because Caucasian people who had tan skin were associated with enjoying leisure activities in the sun, and vacationing in the south, both of which indicate a certain level of wealth and a social status that allows free time to relax and be laid back. Many other examples exist in all periods of history and across all cultures that point to the idea of using appearance to adhere to a social perception of high social class. Therefore, it is true to say that culture and social class are factors that contribute to the perception of beauty.

            A society’s idea of beauty seems to depend on what the people happen to prefer at a given time. It appears to be a somewhat democratic concept in a sense that people usually want to appear desirable to others and therefore choose to adhere to what the general agreement is on what is considered beautiful. But because of cultural differences, societies across the world differ greatly on what is to be called beautiful. To illustrate, in parts of Southeast Asia, women wear rings around their neck from a young age to elongate their neck’s bone structure over time because that is what is considered beautiful. In some African tribes, large wooden plates are placed in the mouth of men and women to stretch out the lips because bigger lips are more desirable. In our own modern Western culture women undergo surgery to enlarge their breasts using silicone implants, and inject chemicals in their lips to enhance their size, as well as undergo liposuction to remove fat from parts of their body because bigger breast and lips, and less weight is considered beautiful. However, there seems to be more to beauty than cultural differences. Not every person that goes out of their way to adhere to what their culture endorses as beautiful will be considered equally and indisputably beautiful. For example, we could not replace a model on the cover of a fashion magazine with a random woman of equal weight and age.

            Research shows that many factors of beauty are universal. In women, a low waist-to-hip ratio seems to be preferred by men all around the world. This ratio represents a woman with a relatively thin waist and relatively broad hips, regardless of weight. If we study the works of art throughout history, most depictions of famous female figures respect the magic waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7. In fact, a favorable waist-to-hip ratio indicates that a woman is young, healthy, and fertile. It’s a sign of genetic fitness and a good choice for a mate, which relates to our species’ main drives to survive and reproduce. Additionally, facial beauty also depends on some universal factors. Symmetry, clear skin, and averageness all contribute to a beautiful face, regardless of culture. In some studies, scientists take pictures of hundreds of people and then create a composite of all the images to form one artificial “average” face. When subjects are shown images of real people and then asked to compare their beauty to the synthetic face, they universally choose the latter as the more beautiful. This study yields the same results regardless of culture. This is because most people have a certain aspect of their face that is desirable, but not all. Therefore, when many faces are blended together, undesirable traits are leveled out. Also, this blending process eliminates skin imperfections and creates a smoother skin texture which adds to the perception of beauty. However, this method only works with many different samples of mixed levels of attractiveness. When the composite is made up of only unattractive people, the resulting average will still remain unattractive.

            According to the evidence, beauty depends mostly on biological preferences that are shared by most humans. These include the signs of health, fertility and good genes. Additionally, beauty is perceived according to cultural and personal preferences. Therefore, physical beauty is only partly in the eye of the beholder.