The weight of bodies: the scales of fatness vary from era to era, not to mention person to person.

Let's talk about nude women--I don't mean in any prurient sense, this is not that kind of magazine--but the manner in which the concept of female beauty has evolved over the centuries. Fundamentally, we are talking weight, the simple distribution of all too solid flesh, for frankly that seems to be the main factor. And the scale, or if you like, scales of that fatness obviously varies from generation to generation, not to mention person to person. What some would call pleasingly plump, others would term grossly overweight. This brings me, being a prisoner of my gender, with no particular reluctance, to naked ladies and why they were painted that way.

There may be other ways that you might assess a woman's purely physical assets, but painters' views in some measure represent the prevailing standard of female beauty during a certain period, at least from a heterosexual male viewpoint. For it's unrealistic to discount some factor of sexual orientation here. It's noticeable that while the female seems more in favor in heterosexual painterly circles (more curves perhaps?), a few male homosexual painters like Michelangelo tend to favor male nudes.

My first exhibits, as it were, are both 16th century: Albrecht Durer's Eve (1507) in the Prado, and Lucas Cranach's The Judgment of Paris. There are a number of versions of the latter, with a 1529 canvas in New York's Metropolitan Museum. They also have his famous depictions of Eve and, for that matter, Adam. They are all positively skinny, though with a distinct sexual allure. Compare these with the 1638 Judgment of Paris by Peter Paul Rubens, and you can discern an almost seismic move in what constituted female beauty--these women are not called Rubenesque for nothing!

Yet in a 1523 Judgment of Paris by Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, the ladies are plump enough to be pregnant, so perhaps the personal choice of the artist is as important as the prevailing body fashion.

Fast forward to the 19th and 20th centuries. An 1850 Odalisque by the French academician Thomas Couture is flamboyantly curvy, although in 1863 Edouard Manet was painting his famously shocking and svelte Olympia. But in contrast we have the plump bathers of Degas, although his famous dancer-bronzes suggest a vote for the skinny. And then taste varies between the slightly rounder nudes of Modigliani on to the positively emaciated ladies of Egon Schiele. Of the Henry Moore sculptural women we will draw a veil, a suitably immense veil.

So what has all this to do with dancers? Quite a lot. It shows that taste--personal and general--influences the way we feel about body type and weight. And it's not entirely responsive to the times those bodies inhabit. Increasingly during the past century we have dancers, male but more particularly female, thinner and thinner. During the 19th--century gossamer days of the Romantic ballet, the thistledown look was necessarily in favor: It went with the subject matter. But by the end of the century and the dominance of Italian dancers (and perhaps Italian pasta) things changed, and at the time of the Diaghilev Ballet at the opening of the past century, most dancers had a fairly robust look. And modern dance itself, although it very soon embraced its own streamlined century, started with the far from sylphlike Isadora Duncan.

Now we have calls, particularly from critics, for sleekly, muscular men and wisplike or whiplike women. No one wants to see a male dancer looking like the governor of California, and it would be impossible for a man to dwindle away and still have the muscles to function. But for a woman it is different--and in the dance world we all know stories of bulimia, anorexia, and milder eating disorders. Some ballet companies put unrealistic demands on their women--with results that often are weakening or unaesthetic.

I am not proposing a dance policy of "Fat is good." About half a century ago I wrote a review very (really very) gently suggesting that a particular ballerina might benefit from a loss in weight. I personally have always been weight-challenged, and the young dancer wrote back with spirit saying, "You're one to talk--look in the mirror." I replied, "Yes love, but I'm not currently appearing onstage at Covent Garden." But while fat is never good, neither is too skinny. There is a golden mean here. As far as body types are concerned, not everyone is meant to be a dancer, any more than they are meant to be champion athletes. As a great dance teacher once said to me after class, "I hope you're not thinking of taking this up seriously, Mr. Barnes." I never made the Olympics either.

Senior Consulting Editor Clive Barnes also covers dance and theater for the New York Post.