Born 700 Years Too Late

It seems, according to our cultural standards, I was born approximately 700 years too late. My body doesn’t fit in 2013. In past cultures, especially renaissance Europe, I might have been a beauty—maybe even a cover girl

I recently read In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant. The cover was a famous portrait of Titian titled The Venus of Urbino. The painting portrayed a woman who was the epitome of a beautiful woman of the 1500’s. Sigh…yes, 700 years too late.

 

In the past, curvaceous women were desirable and considered sexy. Classic art reveals the painters thoughts on women—fleshy women were appealing.  

Of course, women then found it difficult to fulfill that image of beauty too. Food was not plentiful. To be curvaceous, meant that you had money and status. You would be able to produce healthy babies. These women were in the upper stratus of society. Most women would be lean, scrawny and scrambling for food.

Now, with bounteous tables and garbage cans overflowing with wasted food, it’s more difficult for women to remain thin. So of course, that's what society demands. The thin at all costs is a product of modern culture during times of plenty. The bane of women—achieve that which is most difficult in whatever culture they are born into. 

But I guess it all evens out in the end.  A quote from In the Company of the Courtesan said something like this,  “As women age, the thin ones wither and turn to leather. The heavy ones become loose and flabby.” So true!

It’s what the Scripture says,  

^\Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Proverbs 31:30 (NIV)

Seeking the Mystery,