art & desing
SERIE CANON (2021)
Observations on beauty, classical Greece and the Gym
The hegemonic or dominant model of beauty has been imposed by Western culture since its inception. It alludes to the healthy, slim and young body. They are ideal somatic stereotypes constructed socially.
The interest that men have developed for the body and specifically for physical appearance is not spontaneous, it is due to social imperatives of both antiquity and current ones.
The canon, a word that comes from the Greek Χανων, is a concept that institutionalizes, that sets norms in a cultural context, refers to the perfect or ideal proportions of the human body and refers to the harmonic relationships between the different parts of a figure.
In ancient Greece it was mandatory to go to the gym in children from the age of 8. It is true that the sculptures that we know symbolize gods or mythological heroes. They were represented with muscular hypertrophy to show masculinity, strength and power. The Greeks wanted to emulate these bodies as much as possible, it was one of their ideals, they all wanted to be immortalized wearing their best form.
So, the search for that physical beauty is not accidental.
It was implanted in us years ago and it still prevails today.
An irruptive, unexpected artwork, it shelters another look and initiates a dialogue with the others artworks.