The idea of perfection has been pondered and riffed on for millennia by artists, writers and philosophers. These theories and analogies, within the cultural contexts that envelope them, have grown to become the very idea of perfection that one may search for within oneself or a significant other. It does bring me to wonder whether it is life imitating art or art imitating life.
The idea of the perfect man, for example, is brilliantly explored in the character of Atticus Finch, the male protagonist in Harper Lee’s classic novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. However, the author does always leave room to explore the flawed trait and quality of the protagonist. To humanise the subject, in order to make the character relatable.
In the Indian context, Lord Ram in the Ramayan is seen with all the virtues of the perfect man— an ideal son, the doting brother and the loyal husband till the very end when he abandons Sita. The great Indian poet Valmiki, asks one question: what is perfection and its very existence? These characters ,with their idealised nature, make themselves aspirational and almost heroic in stature. Artists have produced such fine works of art, which have left the viewer idealising the subject in the quest for perfection.
The most legendary example of this would be Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Vitruvian Man’, which has fascinated and enthralled visitors flocking to the Louvre for decades now. In the historical lineage of nudes and sketches of the human anatomy, the Vi.