sweasel.com

Umm, Mr. Weasel it’s been a really long time since I took art history in college. Would you mind doing a post on the change in the feminine beauty standard over the years? Please feel free to ignore that esoteric, abstract, modern scribble. Thanks!

BTW, congratulations on two posts w/ more than 20 comments. It appears you’ve been feeding the minions extra-strength pellets 🙂

Oh! Geez. I’m sure there must be a learned and erudite treatise on that somewhere, TI, but it hasn’t got my name on it.

I was just thinking of Fragonard and his giant cellulitey, cottage-cheesey lady asses. Or the Nineteenth Century and its bulgey foreheads and pointy chins. Or the flappers and their flat chests and big chins.

In my lifetime, it’s morphed from skinny and flat-chested to skinny and big-busted. Contrast that with the lady in the painting over the bar in the cowboy movies, who was generally a very chubby girl. Or…have you ever seen the first MGM musical? Bunch of chunky cows in tights.

The weird thing about the shift in faces is that, in the era of photography, there is some suggestion that faces — rather than merely tastes — do change over time.

Yup, faces do change. Or, at least, the ones that get painted or photographed do. But I think it’s the actual faces. It shows well in period movies. Rarely, do actresses look like they stepped out of a photograph or painting from the era in question.

There’s a thesis to be written on this.

Oh, and yes. That’s an astonishing animation.

If it did no other thing, it would show a visiting alien at what point in human history the species went mad.

The animation was astonishing. As you-all said, it appeared to be one continuous face with gently changing pose, position, and expression. Very well done. I played it several times just to see (in my ignorance) just what comprised “sad” versus “stern” versus “happy” versus “come-hither”, versus “you asshat, get that dog out of here”.

I might have made that last one up.

And I clicked on the artist site: so you – Weasel-Hero – helped spread his bread on the water.

I played the “Four-Corners” video over there (’cause I been there) and noticed for the first time that the opening sequence to “Starry, Starry Night” is almost exactly the same as “Aunt Jemima Pancakes” – which are being digested as I speak.

So everything’s connected…

…and Steve, over at Hog on Ice, is discussing maple syrup and pancakes. And women. And tits. So everything really is connected…

Steve is mean as hell.