According to most psychologists, attractiveness is associated not with the perceived object, but with the subject perceiving it. For example, the way we see a person’s appearance can very often be influenced by such qualities as health, high intelligence, social activity, charisma, common interests, and simply positive character traits.
In addition, scientists have noted that familiar faces are also perceived as more attractive. So even if a person already likes you when you start dating, there are high chances you will become more attractive to him with time. Therefore, if a partner says that over time you have become more beautiful, then it may well be true for him.
However, at the same time, there is such a thing as “correct facial features”, that is, certain criteria that show that your face is correct.
For example, for women full lips are a sign of attractiveness, or when the eyes are correctly positioned and not offset close to each other.
And for men it is considered beautiful when he has wide eyebrows or pronounced cheekbones.
So what is the real situation? Is beauty objective or not? Well, let’s figure it out
Biological backgrounds
It is necessary to note that when speaking about beauty, the complex of genes that increase the adaptability of an organism in the specific conditions of the existence of this group plays one of the main roles. For example, strong men who are capable of caring and protecting those around them are considered attractive to women.
For all peoples, the concept of beauty is formed due to the conditions of natural and social environments. So, long legs are beautiful for the inhabitants of open spaces, but they seem ridiculous to the inhabitants of the forests.
The same applies to the pink color on the cheeks of a girl, which is considered an indicator of the health and good condition of the whole body.
Cultural differences
At the same time, the concept of beauty is changeable depending on trends, fashion and even particular countries.
If we speak about modern day, for example to be considered the ideal woman in France, you need to have natural beauty. There are no specific requirements for facial features, the main thing is naturalness in everything: your hair color, the absence of cosmetics or makeup done in nude tones.
In Korea, it is considered beautiful to have a lean physique, small breasts, and a small nose. Turkey’s standards on the contrary do not require women to be excessively thin, even a small tummy is considered beautiful. The figure should be appetizing, feminine, with pronounced hips and waist.
Mathematical calculations
But in some ways, beauty can still be called an objective, almost scientific, one might say, a mathematical concept, which is very closely related to the concept of harmony. A beautiful face is harmonious. Harmony is a relative to proportion. Proportionality and harmony are described and calculated by the ancient Greeks, in particular by Polycletus, who created one of the first treatises on aesthetics, “Canon”, and Vitruvius, who calculated everything in numbers for a truly attractive person. And no matter whether you are looking for handsome singles black over 50 or beautiful young asian individuals – some patterns can still be found.
Around 1490, the great Italian scientist, artist, sculptor Leonardo da Vinci painted his famous drawing “Vitruvian Man”. This drawing is often used as a symbol of the symmetry of the human body.
The drawing, created by Leonardo Da Vinci, depicting the figure of a naked man in two superimposed projections, served as an illustration for a book about the life of the Roman architect Vitruvius, who was the first to describe on paper the proportions of an ideal person.
The meaning of the “Vitruvian Man” is that only the ideal proportions of the human body allow the position with arms and legs spread apart to be inscribed in a circle, and in a square with arms and legs drawn together.
