You would understandably assume that a man blessed with that face would have dodgy taste in clothes, a predilection for teenage models or an urge to produce the sort of introspective films nobody wants to watch.

But Pitt – critically acclaimed movie star, purveyor of a face serum made from Provencal grapes from the south of France, talented sculptor and midlife heartthrob – has a droll sense of his own image, and is in danger of being frustratingly good at everything.

For 30 years, Pitt, 58, has been part of our cultural lives – and part of the lexicon. A merely nice-looking man is described as being “No Brad Pitt” because there is actual Brad Pitt, charming the socks off us despite rarely dipping his toe in the talk-show circuit.

As British Vogue recently wrote in an ode to his style on the Bullet Train publicity campaign: “He looks good in anything right now, largely because he’s clearly very happy to be wearing it.”

And then there is his just-launched beauty line, Le Domaine. Pitt is not a natural beauty influencer. When asked about his skincare routine he looked baffled, and he has refused to appear in any advertisements for the unisex Le Domaine.

But when it comes to the concept and the development of the product, he has been remarkably hands on.

Clearly, the spectre of turning 60 next year has not been the motivating factor behind this venture. “[Ageing] is a concept we can’t escape, and I would like to see our culture embracing it a bit more,” Pitt has said. “I think that we’re learning that if we love ourselves, if we treat ourselves a little better, then there are long-lasting benefits to that.”

Good advice – although loving yourself is surely an easier task if you are Brad Pitt.

Last week, he dropped into a museum in Finland to exhibit his sculptures alongside works by his friends Nick Cave and Thomas Houseago. It would be only fair if the resulting artworks were forgettable and artistically wafer-thin; but the consensus seems to be that they are rather good.

One wall of sculpture in particular depicts a gunfight and the result is oddly affecting, with newspaper The Guardian describing it as “pungent and memorable images of pain and violence”.

Whether the pain in question was illustrative of gun deaths in the United States or of his own acrimonious divorce from actress Angelina Jolie is – like the work of all good artists – up for debate.

His relationship with ex-wife Jolie has been the one fraught element of his public life. They publicly battled over custody of their six children and ownership of their French wine estate (Jolie sold her 50 per cent stake to wine group Tenute del Mondo).

Accusations were levied at him of violence and a vicious fight between the warring couple left a private jet soaked in red wine; Pitt, of course, fared far better than the jet’s leather seats and the scandal rolled off him like water off a duck’s back. Male privilege? Or are we suckers for a guy who is not afraid to talk about his feelings?

Because Pitt is even good at having flaws. In a 2017 interview, he revealed he had just started therapy (“I love it”), and had quit drinking and smoking (both tobacco and pot).

In an article in GQ this summer, he quoted 13th-century Persian poet Rumi, Albert Einstein and Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke and talked about effective communication in a relationship, and how a healthy self begins with taking “radical accountability”.

Phew, in 2022 there is not much women find more attractive than that. Mr Perfect, indeed.