In this art tour we will go through the collections of one of the most influential museums in the world and detail selected works by such Gigants of Western painting as Titian, Rubens, Raphael, Velázquez, Belini, as well as look at the codes of beauty depicted in ancient Greek sculpture. This art tour equal suitable for those interested in questions of human attractiveness and for those who want to get an overview of all the collections of the Viennese Museum of Art History.
Before the tour begins, I will offer you tests so that you can record your intuitive perceptions of beauty. Some of these tests are used by scientists to reveal the evolutionary assumptions of attractiveness. Afterwards, we'll go through the collections of one of the world's finest art museums to examine together images of goddesses and courtesans, historical figures and mythical heroines.
In Titian's collection we will try to find the secret of the attraction of the little foot and Tintoretto's Susanna in the Bath will tell us the basic principle of attraction for the concubines of the Japanese emperor. Peter Paul Rubens' wife will comment on her attitude to the Body Positivity movement, and ancient Egyptian sarcophagi will explain the popularity of push-up bras. We'll look at the rules of the golden ratio in painting and in plastic surgery, and discuss the reasons for the condemnation of the use of cosmetics reflected in Baroque painting.
On this tour of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, we will not only explore masterpieces of art, we will discuss the question of whether female and male attractiveness is purely a matter of taste or whether our ideas of beauty have an evolutionary basis. And we will also find examples where fashion and the pursuit of status have played a major role.
