The External Aesthetics of the Human Body with Anthropologic, Anatomic, Mythological, Artistic, and Neuroscientific Significance

Review Article

Austin Anthropol. 2023; 7(1): 1029.

The External Aesthetics of the Human Body with Anthropologic, Anatomic, Mythological, Artistic, and Neuroscientific Significance

Djulejic V1; Tomic I2; Valjarevic S3; Marinkovic L4; Marinkovic S1*; Boljanovic J1

1University of Belgrade, Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Anatomy, Belgrade, Serbia

2Faculty of Art History and Muldimedia, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

3University of Belgrade, Department of Otorhinolaryngology With Maxillofacial Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Clinical Hospital Center, Zemun, Serbia

4Department of Psychology, Cattolica University, Milan, Italy

*Corresponding author: Slobodan Marinkovic Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Anatomy, Dr. Subotic 4/2, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia. Tel: 00381112645958; Fax: 00381112645958 Email: slobodan.marinkovic@med.bg.ac.rs

Received: August 04, 2023 Accepted: September 04, 2023 Published: September 11, 2023

Abstract

The human body has several “lines of beauty:” the ventral, dorsal and lateral. Females appreciate masculinity, the expressed waist-to-chest ratio, and a Mody Mass Index (BMI) of 26 kg/m2. Males prefer the waist-to-hip ratio of 0.75, a BMI of 19 kg/m2, and larger breasts, as well as a bigger gluteal region in females. The attractive body, important for personal satisfaction and qualitative social relationships, is morphologically related to the golden proportion of 1.618. The body was painted, carved, drawn, and modeled by thousands of artists, from the Paleolithic period, some 35,000 years ago, to the present days. The body was shown either realistically, or in various forms, with a certain mythological, symbolic or conceptual meaning, and with a general or local cultural significance. Neuroscientists revealed various cortical areas and subcortical structures for body and corporal parts processing following their visual perception. The activation of these areas enables the determination of beauty and its various influences, including mood and emotions, eroticism and sexuality, mate choice, reproduction, moral attitudes, social relationships, and pleasure. Obviously, the body aesthetics has a great significance in the everyday lives of the human beings.

Keywords: Anthropology; Aesthetics; Human body; Anatomy; Fine art; Psychology

The Essence of Aesthetics

Aesthetics (from Greek aisthesis = perception), which is virtually a privilege of Homo sapiens, has mainly beauty in its focus [1–5]. It comprises perception, attention, memory, recognition, cognitive evaluation, experience, appreciation, feelings, and pleasure [6–9]. Aesthetics is mainly related to living creatures, especially humans, and various objects and ambients [10,11]. Body morphology, expressed through the golden ratio, Fibonacci sequence, and some other mathematical and geometrical laws, is the scientific basis for coroporal beauty [12–14].

Since body aesthetics has been a trait of humans for at least 35,000 years [15], it is like one of the Carl Jung’s archetypes [16], which is in fact written in our genes for ever. It means that during evolution our brain created a complex neural system for a quick and reliable recognition and appreciation of someone’s attractiveness, both subconsciously (e.g. by means of the amygdala) and consciously (by activating the cortical areas for aesthetics processing), which excites the brain reward regions [7,8].

According to the philosopher Hegel [2], the spirit is the essential prerogative of understanding aesthetics. In any case, body aesthetics has a great role in individual behavior and social interactions p6,8,17,18]. For those reasons, aesthetics is the subject of several anthropologic, psychologic, social and medical sciences and artistic creativity [2,4,15,18–21].

Aesthetics of the Body

The Trunk Aesthetics

There are general and universal morphological features as the basis of the body aesthetics [22]. Thus, the 18th century English painter Hogarth [19] described an S-shaped “line of beauty” as an important aesthetic marker of certain objects, including the human body. Two lines of beauty are seen ventrally and dorsally in the lateral view of a human figure (Figure 1). The ventral line shows developed pectoral and abdominal muscles in males, and the same muscles of a smaller volume in females, including breasts, and the subcutaneous fat tissue (Figure 1, bottom) [17,18,21]. The quadriceps femoris muscle is a caudal terminal part of this line [21].