In Shakespeare's sonnet simply titled 130, he talks about his mistress's imperfections and how this makes her even more beautiful.
Fast forward a few hundred years, and we've arrived at some sort of a beauty vacuum, where everything has to be standardised, perfect and symmetrical.
Exploring whether or not this is actually true, photograper Alex John Beck set about capturing people's pictures, adjusting them on a computer. He doesn't feature the original, but instead, the photo on the left shows what it would look like if the face was symmetrical to the left-hand side, and the right shows what the person would look like if it was symmetrical to the right-hand side.
Writing to HuffPost UK Lifestyle, he said: "I was trying to dispel the belief that symmetry is a core component of beauty. Beauty is inherently subjective, while symmetry is a cold metric. I think character is much more important."
The photos are unsettling, but they do prove a point.
Talking to Time.com, he says: "I think they lack character— beauty is more based on character than an arbitrary data point. Humanity is messy and should remain as such. I, for one, am not a fan of center-parting, for example. And even the greatest tennis players favour one arm.”
Take a look:
Click here for Alex John Beck's Instagram photos.
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