The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-11-22
PAST AND PRS S EMF.
Women of To-Day are Far More Beau
tiful Than Their Grandmothers.
Ernrrl The 81 .Ln,nes Gnzeffe

Women of To-Day are Far More Beau
tiful Than Their Grandmothers.
From the ST. james Gazette.
"Yes, she's decidedly pretty; but not half
so pretty as her mother was at her ager
How often do we hear this remark when we
venture to praise some beauty of the present
day. 1t suggests an important question;
whether the standard OF beauty is changing:
and if 80, whether women are more or less
beautiful than they used to be. This is a
question which may, happily. be aus wered
to the entire satisfaction of the present
generation. There can be no reasonable
doubt that there Is greater beauty now, and
more of 1t. than at any previous time.
No woman has been more celebrated for
her beauty than Mary Queen of Scots; but
If she were to walk unannounced into a
London drawing room to-day it is doubtful
il she would cause much remark. 1t is true
we can hardly realize what Mary was like
we are not even sure of the color OF her hair
or her eyes. The various authentic portraits
Of her are strangely disSimilar. They only
agree in this: That they all show us face
which disappoints US. As we are not salts
fed with degree of beauty
temporaries, which sent the men
of her day off their heads, and filed her
cousin Elizabeth with deadly jealousy-the
inference is that the standard of beauty has
risen, and the rise has probably been grad
ual and constant, each generation making a
certain advance on its predecessor. One
can hardly resist conclusion of this kind
after looking over a collection of portraits
of a single family for three or four centu-
ries. such as one may see in any large old
country house. The further back we go the
lQI or fNr Il ho
gin with the earliest and trace them down
TO the present time we find them steadily
improving as we advance.
1t may be said that this Is the fault of the
old painters who did not know how to make
good likenesses. But no one has ever
looked at Holbein's portraits of Henry
VIII. full of life and character as they
are, without feeling that the real Henry
stands before him. And if Holbein can
give us a life-like representation of Henry,
can he be Incompetent to give us any idea
OF Anne Boleynl Yet the beauty of Anne
Boleyn, as Holbein represents 1.-THE fatal
beauty which lured Henry from his allie
glance to Catherine-is certainly not such
as we would rave about now. And
the best possible proof that Holbein was
quite as able TO fiatter his sitters as some
later artists is the fact that it was his pict-
ure of Anne of Cleves which decided Henry
beard is described as fearfully discouraged
and amazed" when she appeared before him
in person. 1t seems evident, therefore, that
the ideal beauty of the sixteenth
century was inferior to that of the
nineteenth. and this can only have
been due to the absence of higher degree
of beauty upon which to form the ideal.
There is considerable advance in gem
eral beauty when we pass on to the por-
traits of the next century. The ladies of
the reign of Charles l., as painted by Van
dyck, are about the first who are really
pretty according to our ideas. though the
delicate flattery of the artist in trying TO
give them all resemblance to Henrietta
Maria makes them look little monotonous.
Judging from their portraits these ladies of
the restoration period must have been at
least as pretty as their mothers, with more
variety about their style; the points in
which they mostly resemble each other be
ing softness and seusuousness, due to q
not unnatural rebound when the strain of
Puritan primneSs was suddenly removed.
A jump OF another century leads US in the
midst of those great masters who have left
us such full and splend d record of ali that
was noble and beautiful in the days when
George III. was king. Ones first impress
sion on visiting a collection of Reynoldses
and Gainsboroughs is that all the women of
that time must have been lovely and the
painters lucky to get such subjects. Ones
second impression, however, is apt to
be that the settlers were lucky to
have such painters. for the real at
traction is more often in the pictures than
in the faces. Not that there are not
plenty of beautiful faces among them, but
that beauty IS by no means universal, and,
further, that there is no beauty on the can
vases of the last century which could not be
easily matched to-day. We have only to
look at the pictures of the famous Gun
nings to be assured of this. They were de-
clared by their contemporaries to be ''the
handsomest women al1ve.n When they
went into the park they were mobbed by
curious gazers: when they were presented
at court the other ladies attending
the drawing-room climbed upon the
chairs and tables to get glimpse
OF them. When they Travelled people
sat up all night so as not to miss see
ing.them get into their coach in the morn
ing. We do not see any such enthusiasm
now aud we are apt to think it is because
we have nothing lovely enough to be fnthu-
sastic about. But this is not the true ex-
PLANTATION. The beauty OF the Miss Gum
nings can certainly have lost nothing under
Reynolds brush; vet his portraits of them
do not reveal any loneliness which we should
consider wonderful. 1t is not, then, that
we admire beauty less than our forefathers
did, but that we have more of it, aud there
fore it excites US less.
AS to beauty in the present day it is quite
unnecessary to speak. No one who keeps
his eyes open can fail to be struck by it. 1t
is not merely that there are more beauties of
the first order than there seem ever TO have
been before, but that beauty has become so
very general. Amy one who wishes TO test
this has only to take his stand in Piccadilly
and watch the stream of life rolling past
him in carriages and on foot; aud IL he does
not see in one afternoon more pretty faces
than in all the Reynoldses and Gainsbor-
ougGs he knows he will be verv unfortunate.
Indeed, it is hardly possible to deny that in
this matter OF beauty, at least, our age has
gone a good deal ahead of all its predeces-
sors.
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