Beauty is a universal concept that is hard to define but is understood by all. For instance, we may struggle to explain ourselves when asked what is beautiful to us. But if we are asked to point out a beautiful woman in a group, men do it easily and naturally. As the saying goes, when it comes to great beauty, we know it when we see it.

In ancient times, people were so enamoured with the concept of beauty that they actually deified beauty by identifying and worshipping female goddesses.

Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty in Greek mythology. Her legend says that she was born of the sea foam (“foam-arisen”) after a monumental crash between the titan Cronus and the god Uranus. According to writings, Cronus cut off the genitals of Uranus and cast these into the sea, “and white foam arose from immortal flesh; with it a girl grew.”

Freya is the goddess of fertility as well as of love, sex, war, beauty, prophecies and attraction in Norse mythology. Like the modern-day woman, Freya was crazy about jewellery. She named her daughter “Hnoss,” meaning “jewel”.

Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth, light, wisdom and fortune, as well as (secondarily) luck, beauty and fertility in Hindu mythology. She is the goddess who conforms the least to our conventional view of beauty. Lakshmi is often portrayed as a fair lady with four arms who sat on a lotus projecting a benign countenance.

Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty, is the most famous of all the goddesses of beauty. When painting and sculpture dominated the Renaissance period of Europe, Venus was often portrayed in a state of nudity.