Beauty in the past two pages is found in Howard’s gaze on Kiki. Her beauty is then so much more about bodies or careers or whatever. Rembrandt paints his love not in a seductive pose, not a beautiful woman, but a simple plain woman so beautiful in the eyes of the artist. When Howard looks at Kiki and see in her face his life. Her face being the key to his love, his life takes beauty away from her skin, away from her body (size) and away from other women. It’s Kiki’s most personal window into who she is, and in that is where Howard finds his life.
Though all this, beauty becomes about love. In other words, in the last two pages, we see love the filter through which beauty is created. This is true even in my own life. I have been dating my boyfriend for over four years, and I have seen plenty of guys who are physically better looking than him. But, when I look at my boyfriend (especially after he does or says something particularly meaningful or loving) he is the most beautiful, attractive person in the world.
