The face of beauty
or the beauty of a face
A train in Kyoto. It’s the end of the day; work is over and people are going home. Everyone is immersed in their own thoughts, listening to music, or silently exchanging messages with friends or family. And in the midst of all these commuters, the strikingly beautiful face of a young woman.
When I look at the girl in the centre of the photo, another, equally admirable face comes to my mind: a face I once saw on the wall of an antique ruin in Egypt. Or rather a part of a face, the part that had withstood the ravages of time.
Saqqara, Egypt, 2001
Thousands of years separate these two women, but their faces have something noticeable in common. Not only do their features resemble each other in classical beauty, the two faces also display a similar modest, feminine character. Their mouths betray the same subtle expression of amusement. Their lips almost seem to smile. In the case of the girl in the train we may think it is because of what she hears through her earphones. But at bottom, the scarcely perceptible smiles of the two women – although thousands of years apart – may well originate in the same source: the admiration they sense in the looks of others.
Photo of the week: Kyoto, Japan, 2008
καιρός remembered 
[…] Tuthankhamun, and Merit was his wife. I have used this photo before in another context (see my post The face of beauty) where I expressed my admiration for the fine look of this stunning female face. Recently I read […]
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