The Birth of Venus

Even in my heavy Marist High School prep jacket, I still only weighed about 130 pounds.  I could eat those hamburgers and fries from Red's every meal and still not gain a pound.  Man, those were the days.

The problem was that I felt skinny.  Scrawny.   When I worked at Dominic's on 115th street, the tough guys worked in stock or in the meat department.   Although I tried, I just couldn't seem to grow out of my size 28 slim jeans.   And I wasn't a body builder.  One of my good friends who worked in the meat department consolingly told me, "Don't worry man, you eventually start gaining weight." 

He was right, but I had to wait about 20 years.  Now my 20-something coworkers look like I did in my prep jacket.  Except they're in suits.  But I'm me.  And it took me so long to get here - and skinny is worse than my 50-year old chubby. 

But it's not the same for everyone.  There is a great big line drawn by our society and it's sketched way beyond chubby. 

And now like peanut butter and chocolate, our obsession with people living beyond the line has been married to the american circus that is reality TV.   The "Biggest Loser" casts misfits with wannabe drill sargeants in a frenzy of psuedo rehabilitation.   And the unfit millions of couch potatoes sit on them and watch, mesmerized.  Some claim it's just the kind of thing they need to get motivated.

And yet, amazingly, some people still naively believe that artistic ideal of the human form is plus-size.  That the beautiful woman is the full-figured woman.  That Peter Paul Ruben's paintings idealize the female form as generous and curvy.    

But, while I think "Rubenesque" once may have been a compliment, it is no longer.   The figures in the Rubens paintings are exaggerated.  There could be little public agreement that this might be considered a model for the artistic human figure.

But the truth can be found in the work of Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepioticelli - also known as Allesandro Botticelli.   His most famous painting, the Birth of Venus, depicts the goddess Venus (Aphrodite) as she emerges from the sea at birth, standing upon a shell.   Her shell is blown to shore by the Zephyr wind-gods.  She is showered with roses. 

This painting is generally considered to be among the most treasured masterpieces of the Renaissance.

Allesandro's Venus form is not that of those painted by Rubens.  She's a beautiful goddess, a symbol of the coming spring.  She hasn't been living on the treadmill, but she isn't exaggerated either.  She's not a waif.   And Allesandro's representation of this type beauty appears, Venus-like, again and again in his work. 

And you know what?   She could be wearing a Florida State sweatshirt and jeans and be considered an american beauty.  Yet our society argues and obsesses about weight loss and weight gain.   And what's normal. 

Of course, we recognize the health implications and debate who is at fault. 

But we are undeniably a society that is big and getting bigger.   The National Center for Health says that 63% of Americans today are overweight with a Body Mass Index (BMI) in excess of 25.0.  

They can't all be afraid of being scrawny can they?   Or maybe they think the human form is at its artistic best when the painter has to get out the extra tubes of gamboge yellow and crimson?

To get motivated, you don't need to watch the Biggest Loser.  And you don't need to wonder about whether Rubens would have appreciated you.   Take a look at Venus and Aphrodite and the real artistic ideal of the human figure.   Not some reality TV Frankenstein being chased by trainers with pitchforks.