Does art determine the standard of female beauty? Perhaps it has always been art. In the past and still to this day, people have fixated on the Mona Lisa’s quiet face and on Venus’s posing form. It was the painting that set the standards, though today it seems like the main influence is photography, particularly on social media sites like Instagram.
Heightening one’s physical looks to comply with current standards of beauty is a product of evolution aimed at attracting mates, and this is seen not only in humans but all over the animal kingdom. Some humans reconcile their looks with makeup according to standards of their societies and cultures. But thanks to the advancement in medical technologies, we now have the artistic license to reconstruct our bodies. While plastic surgery has been around for thousands of years, purely cosmetic procedures are more accessible today than in the past when it was most commonly used to reconstruct the bodies of soldiers maimed from war.
The French artist Orlan this to an extreme by Frankensteining the facial features of some of the classically beautiful female figures in art, such as the forehead of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and the chin of Botticelli’s Venus. Her surgical procedures are all directed as a performance, where participants are dressed in costumes according to a theme while she reads literary work. From her documentary Carnal Art, many feel she has lost her anonymity, but she instead has gained a reputation for her high-risk theater.
Images from top to bottom: The Birth of Venus(1485–1486), Orlan prepping for a procedure, Orlan with facial implants, Orlan's 4th surgery performance (1991)
Works Cited:
“The Birth of Venus.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Apr. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Venus.
Bright, Richard, et al. “The Future of the Body with Performance Artist ORLAN.” Interalia Magazine, 27 Aug. 2015, www.interaliamag.org/blog/the-future-of-the-body-with-performance-artist-orlan/.
BuzzFeedYellow, director. Beauty Standards Around The World. YouTube, YouTube, 28 June 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT9FmDBrewA.
Hollander, Alyssa. “ART 206 Peoples UFA.” ART 206 Peoples UFA Orlan Comments, 27 Feb. 2014, sites.lafayette.edu/art206-sp14/2014/02/27/orlan/.
MutleeIsTheAntiGod, director. Orlan - Carnal Art (2001) Documentary. YouTube, YouTube, 13 Mar. 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=no_66MGu0Oo.
O'Neal, Taylor. “The Body as Costume; ORLAN’s ‘Omniprésence’ and the Standard of Taste.” Yiara Magazine, 29 Jan. 2019.
ORLAN OFFICIAL WEBSITE / SITE OFFICIEL D'ORLAN, www.orlan.eu/.
Uconlineprogram, director. Medicine pt3. YouTube, YouTube, 22 Apr. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIX-9mXd3Y4.
Wikipedia contributors. "Mona Lisa." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 17 Apr. 2021. Web. 24 Apr. 2021.
Hey Rafi, I enjoyed your blog! And I think you hit on an interesting point about self-beauty being an art in and of itself. I'm curious if you think that conformity to societal expectations of beauty is a form of art?
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