I missed out Nefertiti in the comparison I am about to make. You’ll have to forgive that, because since post Modernism, her imagine is also much more part of popular culture.
So here is the black and white image that I sketched yesterday.
This is my interpretation of the famous photograph of Celia Hammond.
Here is my rendition of the famous Nefertiti bust
And here is the Venus de Brassempouy again, in profile which in my view, reveals very accurately why she was maybe about twelve or thirteen.
In comparing the three images of Venus de Brassempouy, Nefertiti and Celia Hammond, I’m linking three elements in Western art and culture.
1. Very long neck
2. Very deep head.
3. No body
It goes without saying they are all very ‘pretty‘ faces, that’s why they are immortalised, but there is more going on in those three images than statements of beauty.
The long neck is by far the most striking feature, but when you add it to the depth of head, then what you end up with is an exaggerated axis between the bottom of the chin going through the skull, right to the top of the head. In my view, this is an ideal proportion of beauty that persists to this day and is so deeply engrained in us, words are sometimes inadequate to describe the effect of something.
To my mind, it’s almost as if Mother Nature herself elevated these perfect heads onto a special plinth, aka the neck, to best show off these unique people? Is that what’s going on here?
After all, very few people are born with necks like that but when you do see them, you always stop in your tacks. Are we simply talking talking about ‘height advantage’? I don’t think so. It’s something else and possibly it has more to do with placing where there is most unique value in a form?
I think we do this all the time unconsciously anyway, its just the way we are. With all food, livestock, land, buildings, shop space, pets, jewellery, artefacts, people, from luxury goods right up to scrap metal yards, we are constantly evaluating where there is most value in the form?
Some people have great all round form, but by passing that test you usually find, in isolation, their heads or faces are never as exceptional as the three examples mentioned above.
You see plenty of people, all the kinds of people born everyday and everywhere, millions and billions of people, and they all have something that is the ‘best thing‘ on their form, be it great hair, great cheek bones or great skin.
But notice how very few people pass muster in a 360 degree appraisal! Usually, from what I’ve noticed, if the cheek bones are good enough to still fill out the face at a three-quarter turn of the head, then you find the shape of the head is at fault and the whole impression sinks on the full 360 turn of the skull.
In my view, the three heads pictured above are perfect 360 degree portrayals of ‘idealised’ beauty.
I was sitting around a swimming pool once and this man in his late 60s got up and walked to the poolside and took a shower before his swim. During which time, every single person round the pool was eventually alerted to stop reading, talking and applying sun lotion and to glue their eyes onto his legs, because he had the legs of a guy of about 25, in perfect proportion and condition. But it was more than that, it wasn’t that his legs were simply incongruously younger than he was, but that comparing his legs to 3000 or more standard 25-year-olds legs, that mans legs were exceptional.
This is a radar that is constantly on and hardwired into our brains. It has a huge effect on our psyche and history.
I need to do a little more work with Nefertiti because there are so many images of her famous bust that you can really do ‘anatomy’ on that amazing artefact.
Apart from that, I’ve written two short stories in my head about Celia and her bloke Jeff Beck, the guitarist and another of the Venus girl and the chap that carved her image. I’ll work on those this week I think because......well I want to....
Gotta go people, the day job awaits...
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