How to Be a Renaissance Woman, Jill Burke

Descriere

Beauty and power: an alternative history of the Renaissance told by the women beyond the paintings.00Make-up, misogyny and the first feminists: can the pressures women feel to ?look good? be traced to the sixteenth century?00As the Renaissance visual world became populated by female nudes by the likes of Michelangelo and Titian, a vibrant literary scene of beauty tips emerged - fuelling debates about cosmetics and adornment, with answers for worries about everything from podgy upper arms, smelly armpits, droopy breasts, stretch marks and bad breath.00Telling the stories of courtesans, artists, actors and writers rebelling against the strictures of their time, when burgeoning colonialism gave rise to increasingly sinister evaluations of bodies and skin colour, this book puts beauty culture into the frame. It will make you question your ideas about your own body, and ask: Why are women often so critical of their appearance? What do we stand to lose, but also to gain, from beauty culture? What is the relationship between looks and power?00Professor Jill Burke is a historian of the body and its visual representation, focusing on Italy and Europe 1400? 1700. She is the principal investigator of a Royal Society-funded project, ?Renaissance Goo?, at the University of Edinburgh, working with a soft-matter scientist to remake Renaissance cosmetic and skincare recipes.