Ideal Female Body Structur

Symbolism, the common ground on which both Bordo and Warner chose to base their arguments, is at the center of the question of where do the image of the ideal female body figure comes from. Bordo believes it is from society’s pressures of indulgence and control, but does that really create an image? There is definitely an image that we see every day of slender women in commercials and magazines, but how did this come to be the ideal form? This is the question Marina Warner answers in the essay Nuda Veritas. Warner answers this question by discussing art from both Christian and classical culture. She discusses and critiques the idea of ‘the opposition between culture and nature, clothes and nakedness, order and disorder’. From these oppositions we derive our idea of beauty versus ugliness.

In Christian paintings we are shown pictures of the naked female in many ways. The first, nuditas criminalis, is the vision of lust and evil. It is the naked body portrayed in a lustful or distasteful way. We also see visions of age. In these paintings age is a punishment for sin. We are shown images of the body rotting and being consumed by worms or snakes devouring the subjects g

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Bordo and Warner ideas parallel in the idea that the ideal human body comes from images we see, however they differ in the fact that the images are totally different. Jonah after escaping the whales belly ‘is naked, because his faith has purified him of carnal taint so he can reveal himself in the state of Eden before the fall. This is supposed to punish lust, and sex. ’ Bordo argues that these mixed images leaves us somewhere in the middle, or the ideal. This state is without sin; it is pure but at the same time can be bad. We all strive to be virtuous, good and honest so we associate these things with beauty. ‘Truth has nothing to hide and can never be less than whole. These are positive images that we all strive for. I never bought into Bordo’s idea of control versus indulgence because her idea of the norm never seemed normal to me. At the same time though we can associate positive images with nuditas naturalis. We are supposed to see this nudity as ugly and dirty. ‘The wholly naked human body, carrying with it multiple meanings of nature, integrity and completeness. Bordo sees it as a message of control versus indulgence where we are shown commercials where we see diet adds and workout videos saying ‘you don’t have to be dissatisfied with the way you look anymore’ and continue to tell you how to improve yourself. In a way, classical and Christian art were commercials for good and evil. ’

These three images bring us to the formation of the ideal human body.

Approximate Word count = 873
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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