If Venus was born today

I felt pretty honoured when Franzi asked me to do a guest post for her blog. So here comes my very first blog post – I hope you enjoy it! Youdid

I was meddling with different ideas when finally last monday I stumbled across a picture in a local newspaper:

I often wondered what Renaissance-Venuses would look like today. Now Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano has answered my question. She digitally slimmed 10 famous Venuses down to a size comparable to 21st century fashion models. Besides that she enlarged their breasts to make them concordant with today’s idea of a beautiful female body.

Yet Utopia’s intention was not just to echo the often heard criticism of an unhealthy skinny body image. She rather wants to illustrate how easy it is for the fashion world to digitally manipulate images of models, creating standards of beauty that are impossible for most women to attain. 1

Below you see pictures of the Venus project by Anna Utopia Giordano. Cross your heart – which version is more pleasant to your eye?

Notice that even the surrounding ladies had to slim down here.

And is it only models and stars that fall victim to this kind of manipulation? When did you take your last photo for an application? Was it returned to you in a way you recognised yourself – with all your tiny flaws?

Like always: All credits appear after clicking the links.

5 Kommentare zu „If Venus was born today“

  1. How fun is that. I read the same article and found it very interesting. I would also like to see if there is such a dramatic change regarding the male body during the last centuries.
    FYI: I never imagined that you would choose that topic. 😉

  2. Then I’d really like to know WHAT you expected me to choose ^^.
    Anyway – concerning the male body I’m sure there’s not been such a dramatic change in what is appreciated. Though I read an article lately, in which scientists suggested that women’s preference for men with male attributes has shifted to men with rather female attributes (mainly referring to their faces I reckon). The example was from Clooney to Pattinson. And all this because of the Pill.

  3. Yeah, i´ve heard that, too. Evolutionary not the best thing to do. And who would choose Pattinson over Clooney??
    I thought you would write something about dance/ballet but then I saw that franzi already picked that topic. My next guess was one of your favorite painters. So i suppose i am not good at guessing.
    And now i am anxious about Maries topic. 😉 and still 3 more days.

  4. Excellent job, Youdid. I really, really like that topic – in view of the art aspect (and in view of the pill’s multible effects :D). Une Rousse: Nice to have you back in the internet universe!

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