Reading:
Ideal beauty Raphael knew a thing or two about the loveliness of women. His portrait of La Fornarina leaves no doubt He saw in her a gorgeous piece of pie. Yet even she was not enough to establish his ideal. To conjure the perfection of Madonna he cast his eye about Among the ladies of the Florence of his day And picked out half a dozen of its finest beauties, ‘Taking a little from each one Then adding something of his own.’ Well, that’s what current gossip had to say. I’ve often wondered what it was Raphael was after though. A distillation of some female essence yes, but how? Did his mind’s eye strip out blemishes to leave perfection? Or was he looking for some canon of proportion, Averaging the measurements of his selection To make a kind of pre-computer age quintessence? Or was it only compilation: this one’s nose; That one’s eyes, the other’s winning smile, Those rosy cheeks the artist’s standard finishing tool? The kind of collaged dream we used to share at school. There’s a flaw in this way of making objéts types. You want to create a modern Aphrodite. Instead you end up with that Barbie doll That strikers in the Premier Football League Show-off in fancy nightclubs as their trophy wives. Her plastic looks may blow your mind; make others weep. But in truth she’s not real womankind, only hapless moll Who’d soon fatigue, and quite unsuited to our daily lives. On frescoed wall or on an altarpiece, ideal beauty has its place. But I prefer the empathy of a normal human face.
Peter Lloyd Jones 