I looked up in the Bible a title for this chapter today - perhaps pretentiously must admit, but still, it sounds very good to me. Women... what a wonderful creation, what a marvellous gift to men, what a delicious inspiration for music, poetry, paintings, what a reference when talking about beauty........ yet what a challenge when it comes to understanding them! No offence ladies, but you must agree with me at least on this one.
I recall when seeing a few paintings from Rubens in a museum a long time ago I said to myself: in Rubens' times the standards of beauty had nothing to do with today's, that's for sure. However, when you see the big picture (quite literally in this case) those pale fat women were brilliantly conceived to depict beauty the way Rubens wanted them to. I must have been around 13 or 14 when I saw those paintings and since then I became curious about the beauty of women. All women have something beautiful, I believe there must be more to a woman than a pretty face and a nice rear... Don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to be a pseudo spiritualistic woman idealiser who's traumatised by his mother's religious strictness. I'm only saying that there is nothing in this world that better expresses beauty than a woman, that's all. A woman is only rivalled by mother nature, but then again, it's a different kind of beauty.
For me - being born from a woman and being a father to one, women inspire absolute respect and admiration, let alone contemplation when she's beautiful, something my woman doesn't quite understand yet (she may never, really) and it has brought about more than a quarrel. Still, I will live up to my thoughts on Rubens. No matter how, women brilliantly depict beauty to its full extent with their ideas and ideals, goals in life, persistence, styles even their contradictions and also with their faces, bodies, curves, hair.... We men try to find a balance between all the above, sometimes very hard to find but the quest is worth the effort. All I can say for now is thank you God for women!
