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Beauty is today an added value which creates assets and will help in the sentimental, professional and social fields, and due to this, is intensely pursued.
History has proven how mankind has always focused on beauty as a strong point to be upheld, maintained, or conquered through diverse means. In ancient times beauty was considered as an expression of the divine and because of this was exalted, venerated and immortalized in numberless Greek paintings and sculptures. Artists and the commissioners of their art works possessed a privileged access towards the divine.
In the past, the makeup that was used to protect the skin from the sun began to be used as a beauty tool. As is done today, maquillage was a means to conceal the defects and at the same time enhance the beauty of a face. It is only natural and normal, in fact, for people to strive to improve and exalt their appearance and this is what prompts an ongoing drive to improve one’s image.
Independently from the thousand motives that urge us to search for “beauty” in things and people, the question that spontaneously arises has to do with the concept of beauty. Can we affirm that beauty is subjective and depends on the eyes of the observer, or is there an objective concept of beauty?
The Greeks were the first to believe that ideal beauty could be accounted for and expressed through a mathematic formula and the 1: 1.618 proportion, called the golden ratio. Phidias and Polyclitus, celebrated classical sculptors, went beyond by attributing to their masterpieces “perfect” proportions based precisely on the 1:1.618. Euclid, the genius of geometry, around 300 BC, in his Elements, left the oldest written commentary on this topic.
Other great artists adopted these proportions in their works, and this is why, for instance, the navel of Botticelli’s Venus and that of Michelangelo’s David are placed in the same exact position: at 61,8% of the height of the statues. Even Leonardo da Vinci is believed to have drawn his inspiration from the golden ratio in defining the shape of the face of the Gioconda and the position of her neck and hands. From his studies he is thought to have concluded that in that “divine proportion” lay the “the most aesthetically pleasing ratio between the parts of the human body”.
Ancient art tells us that the study of the human body in anatomy and in its proportions became the measure for all things, also of architectural design.
Nature contains numberless examples that confirm these proportions: each spiral of a shell’s cover is 0.618 times the size of the previous one and the number of a sunflower’s petals is 55 and 34, the ratio of which is about 1.618. There are therefore, neurological mechanisms of the mind that are naturally and instinctively attracted to faces that respect the proportions of the golden ratio.
The “golden ratio” also called the “Measure of the Gods” could explain the motives for which some people or paintings or aspects of nature are undeniably beautiful. Our brain would thus have a natural preference for lines and shapes that recall that mathematical ratio.
These are guidelines to be followed in a rhinoplasty procedure to improve the appearance of a nose, in that they ensure a harmonious balance between the proportions of the nose and the other elements of the face and the shape of the face as a whole.
Even the hands of the plastic surgeon move, searching to produce or respect these proportions. This study of proportions must be accompanied by an undoubted sense of aesthetics and artistic ability, fundamental features which along with technical skills make up a good cosmetic surgeon.