Symmetry

An absence of genetic defects?

• Why is symmetry appealing?

• Recent studies have found that humans and other animals are highly sensitive to symmetry in each other and often use it to gauge beauty and health during mate selection.

• Why?

Julian Wolkenstein

Using Photoshop, recreate your own left and right side portait’s. How different are they to your normal picture? How symmetrical are you?

Save and print your work.

Homework

• Complete a symmetrical drawing of a face – make both sides identical

Aesthetics – the philosophical branch of inquiry concerned with beauty, art and perception

• The first people to try and define beauty in the way which we understand it today, were the Ancient Greeks.

• Socrates equated beauty with purity, things that are truly pure, give you pleasure, and if you feel pleasure (aesthetically), therefore it must be beautiful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88gXWW3qN7o

Riace bronzes 450 B.C.Kritios boy 480 B.C.

What changed in the philosophy of beauty between the creation of these two works of art?

Homework question

• Could we relate the exaggeration of the Riace bronzes to anything we experience in todays society?

• What?• Give examples!

Plotinus

• Plotinus inherited the Pythagorean definition of beauty which comprises order, harmony, measure and proportion, and whilst he was interested in these in terms of the human form, his interest in beauty went beyond that.

• Colour and light for example, cannot be described in terms of symmetry; yet they can be described as beautiful.

• Spiritual qualities such as virtue, truth, grace or mercy can be beautiful, but how can they be symmetrical or depend on symmetry to account for their beauty?

Spiritual beauty• Can a physical body reflect a spiritual beauty?• Can a face show evidence of a beautiful

existence?

Homework

• Find examples of faces that you find show spiritual beauty.

• Print out – you could practice drawing one or two of these, it will come in really handy for your next lesson.

• Summarize the the things discussed in class – make sure all your photoshop work is printed out and up to date – explain how to create layer masks