ABSTRACT
The chapter provides a close reading of a key passage on natural and artificial beauty from the Ars amatoria (Art of love), written by the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BC–17 AD). In his didactic poem, he brings together courtship and beauty care and declares both to be art (ars) for the first time. Consequently, the famous passage from his Ars amatoria, ‘concealment of art aids your appearance’ ( ars faciem dissimulata iuvat , III.210, transl. M. Johnson) can be considered the founding text of the connection between cosmetics, art and love. Ovid probably wrote his Ars amatoria together with his Remedia amoris (Remedy of love) and his Medicaminae faciei femineae (Treatments for the female face). The chapter examines how his concept of cosmetics and beauty was adopted in the early modern period, particularly with regard to his idea that women and men should have a natural appearance, and the consequences this had for the iconography of the toilette and painting as a whole.
