Depictions of Beauty in the Victorian Era :: British History Essays

Depictions of Beauty in the Victorian Era Missing kit and caboodle Cited What is beauty anyway? Theres no such thing. (Pablo Picasso) The Victorians obsession with physical visual aspect has been well documented by scholars. This was a society in which ones tog was an immediate indication of what one did for a living (and by extension, ones commit in life). It was a world, as John Reed puts it, where things were as they seemed (312). So it is not surprising to find that the Victorians also placed great opinion in bodily style. To the Victorians, a face and figure could reveal the midland thoughts and emotions of the individual as reliably as clothing indicated his occupation. There is considerable evidence of the pervasiveness of this belief in the literary works of the period. According to Reed, Victorian literature abounds with expressions of faith in physiognomy (336). He quotes a passage from Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre to conjure up the drive Jane Eyre, for example, trusts her initial perception of Rochester, whose brow showed a solid full mass of intellectual organs, but an abrupt deficiency where the suave signaling of benevolence should have risen (146 ch. 14, Reed 336). In the Victorian novel, physical appearance was a primary means of characterization (Lefkovitz 1). A hero or heroines beauty (or lack thereof) was probably the most important aspect of his or character. As Lefkovitz points out, beauty is always culturally defined. How then, did the Victorians define it? For women, that definition is a strange mixture of ideals. The Victorians admired both the strong, hearty, statuesque lady (modeled on Queen Victoria herself) and the weak, fainting beauty, who Lefkovitz uses the French word mourante to define dying, languishing, expiring, fainting, fading (36). The power type was most popular in the first half of the century, concord to Federico A womans body in the first decade of the century was . . . to a lower place considerable scr utiny, and the ideal against which she was measured was tall and statuesque, stately, elegant, refined . . . nothing is considered so outre excessive as a slender waist, while the en bon point is the ne plus ultra utmost point meaning a towering, powerful-looking woman of powder-puff proportions. (30)Many writers embraced this strong, sculpted, large-bodied female type, if only to use her as a simile to the more delicate beauty that became popular later. According to Lefkovitz, the two conventions knock against (and clash) in George Eliots Adam Bede Bessy Cranage .