Department of plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Ilsan Hospital
Dongguk University Medical Center, Gyeonggi-Do, Korea.
Office: http://www.dumc.or.kr/index00.jsp
Personal: http://beautyportal.co.kr
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What is a beautiful face? Seung Chul Rhee MD., PhD., Professor at Department of Plastic and Reconsturctive Surgery, Dongguk University, Ilsan Hospital, would like to share some ideas on this topic. Beauty is a very difficult yet fundamental concept that has been explored by psychoanalysts, aestheticians, and plastic surgeons. There are many research institutes in the UK, Germany and Australia, etc. solely dedicated to this topic. Surgeons specializing in aesthetic plastic surgical procedures sometimes need to approach beauty not with subjective definitions but philosophical and social definitions; The standards of beauty rapidly changes and today’s plastic surgeons need a insights and understanding of up-to-date trends to create beautiful looks that the public wants. I hope this series provides an opportunity for specialists to discuss what makes a beautiful face.
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Necessary and sufficient condition of a beautiful face include mathematical and scientific factors as well as trends and a sort of zeitgeist of the contemporary society. In other words, the definition of beauty of a particular period consists of unique and scientific principles but can also be sometimes directly driven by the public, mass media and doctors or formed from the interactions thereof.
In his book Poetics1, Aristoteles defined beauty depends on a 'magnitude and orderly arrangement of parts that are not coincidental.' Plato, in his book Philebos2, discussed that ‘beauty arises from a special regularity, symmetry and analogy of shapes and colors (Symmetria and Analogia).’ Cicero famously said ‘The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions,’ noting that the physical appearance betrays a person’s life and thoughts. Such a vast interest in the physical appearance led to development of Physiognomy3 in the Western culture.
As shown above, many philosophers discussed the importance of the physical beauty. However, a big part of the Western thoughts also were wary of vanity as evidenced by sayings such as ‘Beauty is in the eye of beholder’ or ‘Beauty is but skin deep.’ Confucius said ‘Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it’ and Vincent Van Gogh mused that ‘If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere,’ both emphasizing the importance of natural or mental beauty. The definition of beauty was one of the most important topics for philosophers.
As many scholars have discussed, the physical appearance has become an essential part of a person’s competitiveness, leadership, and ability to choose a successful spouse, etc. in the modern world.4-8 For this reason, sayings such as ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ are increasingly less appealing in today’s society.
-To be continued-
