Love, Beauty, and Honor Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Love, Beauty, and Honor - Essay Example The image of ideal appearance also undergoes constant changes. Women who were treated as the most beautiful during baroque seem to be ugly today. Modern people do not behave the same way as they did many centuries ago. The changes in the understanding of beauty, love and honor should be analyzed in detail in order to see the development of the humanity. However, it is possible if one analyzes all the periods of art development: classical, renaissance, baroque, romanticism, realism, impressionism, post-impressionism, modern and contemporary. It is necessary to stress that the notions of love, beauty and honor are closely connected with Humanities. It is possible to research these terms and changes in them only with the help of these sciences. The latter give an opportunity to resort to the use of historical facts, literature, arts and teach us to think analytically. It is impossible to view the changes in the image of beauty, love and honor without going back to some historical facts and the works of famous artists. Otherwise, the research will be plain and unreasoned. Initially, there was no ideal image of human beauty because only gods were depicted as the best-looking creatures. Nobody could be prettier than them. The majority of artists and sculptures depicted ideal bodies of gods. They seldom used ordinary people for their works. All sculptures and pictures demonstrated ideal body because the artists applied young athletes for models. It is necessary to stress that the ideal female beauty in classical period was represented by the image of Aphrodite mentioned in Homeric writings. Practically all sculptures and paintings depicted naked people. It was quite normal for classical period. There were some changes in renaissance. It should be noted that renaissance perceptions of beauty are easily seen in Botticelli’s Venus and Mars that is placed in the National Gallery in London. Thus, an ideal beauty of renaissance should have symmetrical features of her body and face, perfect alabaster skin. One should have high forehead, pale skin, the sharply defined chin, strawberry blond hair, delicate and high eyebrows, full lips, narrow mouth and strong nose. Venus depicted by Botticelli is dressed; however, it is done so that it is easy to understand that she has ideal body. The renaissance and humanism rejected the point of view that only gods can be beautiful and viewed beauty as a consequence of harmony of proportions and rational order. Renaissance artists began to stress human sexuality. The emphasis was made on female breast. Baroque period opposed to renaissance. All the artists belonging to this period resorted to the use of clearly defined planes. There was a continuous overlapping of elements and figures. All depictions looked psychologically and physically real. More bright and dramatically colors were applied. Caravaggio is the most celebrated representative of this period. The most famous pictures are: The Rich Old Man from the Parable by Rembrandt, Cupboard by Georg Flegel, The Coronation of the Virgin by Diego Velazquez, etc. The pictures and sculptures of the artists of this period demonstrated fat bodies because they were in fashion. An ideal woman of baroque should have fat hips, blond hair and deep navel. The period of romanticism was predetermined by rococo. An ideal woman should have resemblance with china statuette. This meant having thin waist, small head, roundish hips and narrow shoulders. Women wore pompous dresses

Major Theories of Crime Causation Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Major Theories of Crime Causation - Term Paper Example Cultural deviance theory is a subset of a bigger range of theories which all have to do with the structure, or more exactly, the stratification of human society. Stratification is the way that objects are arranged in layers, such as in ancient rock formations, for example, and in society the term refers to the economic or social classes that exist in human societies. There are always some people who have a lot of wealth and power, and these people represent the upper classes. They enjoy prestige and privileged access to many of the benefits of society. Below this layer are those who are comfortable and can access some but not all of the advantages that a society offers, and at the bottom of the heap are the poor, who very often struggle to meet basic needs and are excluded from many of the benefits of society. The proportion of the population in each stratum can vary according to the culture and the history of different places. Some countries, like the USA and most of Western Europe has a very large middle class, while others, like India, have a huge lower class. In all societies it has been noted that the classes at the bottom of this hierarchy tend to have more crime. Economic disadvantage, therefore, is a factor which can lead to greater levels of crime. Lack of wealth results in an environment where people do not have the spare income to spend on keeping the place in order, and this means that disorganization and chaos is more likely to occur. Middle and upper class communities take more pride in their local area because they have invested a lot of resources in their homes, for example in buying or renting nice properties and making their gardens and houses neat and clean. People who struggle to put food on the table do not have the luxury to look after their neighbourhood, and crime develops in the neglected public spaces. In this context there is much less to lose, and so there is a greater tendency to opt out of constructive community efforts. People do not become attached to the place, or their neighbors and in fact â€Å"Residents in crime-ridden neighborhoods try to leave at the earliest opportunity.† (Siegel, 2007, p. 126) Life in an economically disadvantaged area is stressful and results in a culture forming in which those who are not able to move out and up into a more advantageous layer of society find ways of adapting to their environment. The cultural disadvantage theory observes that lower-class people have different values than middle and upper class people. They do not try to compete in conventional arenas like education and employment, but seek success in different ways, and measured by different standards. So for example instead of working through an apprenticeship and starting a long term career, lower class people set their sights on the values of the street: being tough and streetwise, doing deals and gaining income in ways which demand street wisdom rather than conventional submission to rules. The usual authority figures such as parents, teachers, police, are seen as influences to be r ejected, in favor of a kind of rebellious autonomy. In this world view crime plays a big part, because