Topic: Body Image

Dove Ad Enlists Criminal Sketch Artist To Draw How Women See Themselves

Dove Ad Enlists Criminal Sketch Artist To Draw How Women See Themselves

Are you ready for a totally thought-provoking commercial that will make you question everything you’ve internalized about body image while simultaneously desiring some Dove bodywash? Check out the latest missive in Dove’s “campaign for real beauty,” for which the brand hired a forensic sketch artist to draw women how they see themselves, as well as how others see them. More »

Photographers Tape Photoshopped Images Over Regular People For Surreal Results

Photographers Tape Photoshopped Images Over Regular People For Surreal Results

French photographer duo Bruno Metra and Laurence Jeanson (known collectively as Metra-Jeanson) have a compelling series that explores ideas about beauty–specifically of expectations and reality. In the set of sparse portraits, the duo shoot regular (albiet uniformly comely) people who have glossy, photoshopped magazine clippings taped over various features More »

‘Alpha Beauties’ Art Series Retouches Classic Paintings To Make Them Fit Modern Beauty Standards

'Alpha Beauties' Art Series Retouches Classic Paintings To Make Them Fit Modern Beauty Standards
DaVinci, "The Mona Lisa"
Cabanel, "The Birth Of Venus"
Ingres, "Grande Odalisque"
Titian, "The Venus Of Urbino"
Velazquez, Venus At Her Mirror

Will we ever get tired of looking at classic paintings of beautiful women Photoshopped to look fashion model thin? I don’t think so! In a similar vein to Anna Utopia Giordano‘s nifty series of photoshopped paintings, artist Nazareno Crea has produced a series called “Alpha Beauties” for which he retouched the subjects of the great paintings of yore to fit our modern standards of beauty: high cheekbones, big eyes, narrow hips, and skinny, skinny, skinny. Looking through them, I find the effect to be downright uncanny, so I’m judging his work to be effective. I realize it’s not a new practice to point out how arbitrary our cultural standards of beauty are; feminist artists have been doing it since the 1970s. But as those standards continue to hammer us every day, it’s still nice to have a reminder once in a while. Look through these side-by-side comparisons of his images with the original paintings and see if you don’t agree; there are lots more to be found on Crea’s website. More »

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