Morphing Art

I've been intrigued by the 'morphing' of faces in art & film in the past, mainly from a psychological perspective. Some of us remember an experiment done with babies where a large portrait of Paul Newman, considered an attractive man in our culture & a less 'attractive' portrait of another man were put side by side in front of the babies, with plenty of room to crawl. About 95% of the time the babies crawled to Newman, 'proving' that even babies are more attracted to attractive people. It actually boils down to symmetry; the more closely matched the left & right halves of the face, the more attractive we humans consider those folks to be.

The first example of morphing above is relatively old; intriguing in a way, but all the women seem to me to be based on an Anglo-European vision of beauty. I was fascinated however when I came across the second, more recent example of morphing. Low & behold, even death masks, stone Buddhas, as well as other ancient statues have symmetry too & 'morph' just as easily as the women do!

Hmmmm..... maybe the human race is more aligned in a universal version of what's considered attractive after all!