by Reena Daruwalla, guest writer for Nancy Hayssen.com

In my earlier posts I have demonstrated what the meaning of beauty is in India and more particularly in South India.

But even in western culture I have found enough evidence to suggest that thru the ages, the concept of beauty of the ideal woman is always portrayed as a woman with full, natural curves and not the angular, almost gaunt look sported by a lot of models today. I think this current obsession with being a certain size is a temporary cultural aberration and will soon going to be erased from popular perception. The classical ideal of feminine beauty was most certainly what we now term as plus size!

Take a look for instance as some of the most beautiful and famous sculptures of Western Civilization. Even those who have no interest in or knowledge of sculpture have probably heard of or have seen a picture of Venus de Milo. This is one of the most famous surviving ancient Greek sculptures. Note how the musculature is well defined and healthy looking.

Another classical example of a beautiful woman’s sculpture is the statue of the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Although decapitated perhaps because it is more than two thousand years old, the almost lyrical lines of the beautiful female form is lovingly rendered in this partially clothed depiction. The well rounded belly and the well defined camber of the leg are a lovely sight and certainly the sculptor thought that this was a beautiful woman.

The Venus di Medici, another celebrated ancient Greek statue is a stunning depiction of a nude woman rising from the sea. This is another gorgeous example of the ideal female form as portrayed thru the ages. Many subsequent replicas and copies have been made of this sculpture thru the subsequent ages, giving credence to the fact that this was in fact the ideal of female beauty thru the centuries!