the hair of their statues, and the figurines in many cases show very fair
hair.[157] The Roman custom of dyeing the hair light, as Renier has shown,
was not due to the desire to be like the fair Germans, and when Rome fell
it would appear that the custom of dyeing the hair persisted, and never
died out; it is mentioned by Anselm, who died at the beginning of the
twelfth century.[158]
In the poetry of the people in Italy brunettes, as we should expect,
receive much commendation, though even here the blondes are preferred.
When we turn to the painters and poets of Italy, and the æsthetic writers
on beauty from the Renaissance onward, the admiration for fair hair is
unqualified, though there is no correspondingly unanimous admiration for
blue eyes. Angelico and most of the pre-Raphaelite artists usually painted
their women with flaxen and light-golden hair, which often became brown
with the artists of the Renaissance period. Firenzuola, in his admirable
dialogue on feminine beauty, says that a woman's hair should be like gold
or honey or the rays of the sun. Luigini also, in his _Libro della bella
Donna_, says that hair must be golden. So also thought Petrarch and
Ariosto. There is, however, no corresponding predilection among these
writers for blue eyes. Firenzuola said that the eyes must be dark, though
not black. Luigini said that they must be bright and black. Niphus had
previously said that the eyes should be "black like those of Venus" and
the skin ivory, even a little brown. He mentions that Avicenna had praised
the mixed, or gray eye.
In France and other northern countries the admiration for very fair hair
is just as marked as in Italy, and dates back to the earliest ages of
which we have a record. "Even before the thirteenth century," remarks
Houdoy, in his very interesting study of feminine beauty in northern
France during mediæval times, "and for men as well as for women, fair hair
was an essential condition of beauty; gold is the term of comparison
almost exclusively used."[159] He mentions that in the _Acta Sanctorum_ it
is stated that Saint Godelive of Bruges, though otherwise beautiful, had
black hair and eyebrows and was hence contemptuously called a crow. In the
_Chanson de Roland_ and all the French mediæval poems the eyes are
invariably _vairs_. This epithet is somewhat vague. It comes from
_varius_, and signifies mixed, which Houdoy regards as showing various
irradiations, the same quality which later gave rise to the term _iris_ to
describe the pupillary membrane.[160] _Vair_ would thus describe not so
much the color of the eye as its brilliant and sparkling quality. While
Houdoy may have been correct, it still seems probable that the eye
described as _vair_ was usually assumed to be "various"
in color also, of
the kind we commonly call gray, which is usually applied to blue eyes
encircled with a ring of faintly sprinkled brown pigment. Such eyes are
fairly typical of northern France and frequently beautiful. That this was
the case seems to be clearly indicated by the fact that, as Houdoy himself
points out, a few centuries later the _vair_ eye was regarded as _vert_,
and green eyes were celebrated as the most beautiful.[161] The etymology
was false, but a false etymology will hardly suffice to change an ideal.
At the Renaissance Jehan Lemaire, when describing Venus as the type of
beauty, speaks of her green eyes, and Ronsard, a little later, sang:
"Noir je veux l'oeil et brun le teint, Bien que l'oeil verd toute la France adore."
Early in the sixteenth century Brantôme quotes some lines current in
France, Spain, and Italy according to which a woman should have a white
skin, but black eyes and eyebrows, and adds that personally he agrees with
the Spaniard that "a brunette is sometimes equal to a blonde,"[162] but
there is also a marked admiration for green eyes in Spanish literature;
not only in the typical description of a Spanish beauty in the _Celestina_
(Act. I) are the eyes green, but Cervantes, for example, when referring to
the beautiful eyes of a woman, frequently speaks of them as green.
It would thus appear that in Continental Europe generally, from south to
north, there is a fair uniformity of opinion as regards the pigmentary
type of feminine beauty. Such variation as exists seemingly involves a
somewhat greater degree of darkness for the southern beauty in harmony
with the greater racial darkness of the southerner, but the variations
fluctuate within a narrow range; the extremely dark type is always
excluded, and so it would seem probable is the extremely fair type, for
blue eyes have not, on the whole, been considered to form part of the
admired type.
If we turn to England no serious modification of this conclusion is called
for. Beauty is still fair. Indeed, the very word "fair"
in England itself
means beautiful. That in the seventeenth century it was generally held
essential that beauty should be blonde is indicated by a passage in the
_Anatomy of Melancholy_, where Burton argues that
"golden hair was ever
in great account," and quotes many examples from classic and more modern
literature.[163] That this remains the case is sufficiently evidenced by
the fact that the ballet and chorus on the English stage wear yellow wigs,
and the heroine of the stage is blonde, while the female villain of
melodrama is a brunette.
While, however, this admiration of fairness as a mark of beauty
unquestionably prevails in England, I do not think it can be said--as it
probably can be said of the neighboring and closely allied country of
France--that the most beautiful women belong to the fairest group of the
community. In most parts of Europe the coarse and unbeautiful plebeian
type tends to be very dark; in England it tends to be very fair. England
is, however, somewhat fairer generally than most parts of Europe; so that,
while it may be said that a very beautiful woman in France or in Spain may
belong to the blondest section of the community, a very beautiful woman in
England, even though of the same degree of blondness as her Continental
sister, will not belong to the extremely blonde section of the English
community. It thus comes about that when we are in northern France we find
that gray eyes, a very fair but yet unfreckled complexion, brown hair,
finely molded features, and highly sensitive facial expression combine to
constitute a type which is more beautiful than any other we meet in
France, and it belongs to the fairest section of the French population.
When we cross over to England, however, unless we go to a so-called
"Celtic" district, it is hopeless to seek among the blondest section of
the community for any such beautiful and refined type.
The English
beautiful woman, though she may still be fair, is by no means very fair,
and from the English standpoint she may even sometimes appear somewhat
dark:[164] In determining what I call the index of pigmentation--or degree
of darkness of the eyes and hair--of different groups in the National
Portrait Gallery I found that the "famous beauties" (my own personal
criterion of beauty not being taken into account) was somewhat nearer to
the dark than to the light end of the scale.[165] If we consider, at
random, individual instances of famous English beauties they are not
extremely fair. Lady Venetia Stanley, in the early seventeenth century,
who became the wife of Sir Kenelm Digby, was somewhat dark, with brown
hair and eyebrows. Mrs. Overall, a little later in the same century, a
Lancashire woman, the wife of the Dean of St. Paul's, was, says Aubrey,
"the greatest beauty in her time in England," though very wanton, with
"the loveliest eyes that were ever seen"; if we may trust a ballad given
by Aubrey she was dark with black hair. The Gunnings, the famous beauties
of the eighteenth century, were not extremely fair, and Lady Hamilton, the
most characteristic type of English beauty, had blue, brown-flecked eyes
and dark chestnut hair. Coloration is only one of the elements of beauty,
though an important one. Other things being equal, the most blonde is most
beautiful; but it so happens that among the races of Great Britain the
other things are very frequently not equal, and that, notwithstanding a
conviction ingrained in the language, with us the fairest of women is not
always the "fairest." So magical, however, is the effect of brilliant
coloring that it serves to keep alive in popular opinion an unqualified
belief in the universal European creed of the beauty of blondness.
We have seen that underlying the conception of beauty, more especially as
it manifests itself in woman to man, are to be found at least three
fundamental elements: First there is the general beauty of the species as
it tends to culminate in the white peoples of European origin; then there
is the beauty due to the full development or even exaggeration of the
sexual and more especially the secondary sexual characters; and last there
is the beauty due to the complete embodiment of the particular racial or
national type. To make the analysis fairly complete must be added at least
one other factor: the influence of individual taste.
Every individual, at
all events in civilization, within certain narrow limits, builds up a
feminine ideal of his own, in part on the basis of his own special
organization and its demands, in part on the actual accidental attractions
he has experienced. It is unnecessary to emphasize the existence of this
factor, which has always to be taken into account in every consideration
of sexual selection in civilized man. But its variations are numerous and
in impassioned lovers it may even lead to the idealization of features
which are in reality the reverse of beautiful. It may be said of many a
man, as d'Annunzio says of the hero of his _Trionfo della Morte_ in
relation to the woman he loved, that "he felt himself bound to her by the
real qualities of her body, and not only by those which were most
beautiful, but specially by _those which were least beautiful_" (the
novelist italicizes these words), so that his attention was fixed upon her
defects, and emphasized them, thus arousing within himself an impetuous
state of desire. Without invoking defects, however, there are endless
personal variations which may all be said to come within the limits of
possible beauty or charm. "There are no two women," as Stratz remarks,
"who in exactly the same way stroke back a rebellious lock from their
brows, no two who hold the hand in greeting in exactly the same way, no
two who gather up their skirts as they walk with exactly the same
movement."[166] Among the multitude of minute differences--which yet can
be seen and felt--the beholder is variously attracted or repelled
according to his own individual idiosyncrasy, and the operations of sexual
selection are effected accordingly.
Another factor in the constitution of the ideal of beauty, but one perhaps
exclusively found under civilized conditions, is the love of the unusual,
the remote, the exotic. It is commonly stated that rarity is admired in
beauty. This is not strictly true, except as regards combinations and
characters which vary only in a very slight degree from the generally
admired type. "_Jucundum nihil est quod non reficit variatas_," according
to the saying of Publilius Syrus. The greater nervous restlessness and
sensibility of civilization heightens this tendency, which is not
infrequently found also among men of artistic genius.
One may refer, for
instance, to Baudelaire's profound admiration for the mulatto type of
beauty.[167] In every great centre of civilization the national ideal of
beauty tends to be somewhat modified in exotic directions, and foreign
ideals, as well as foreign fashions, become preferred to those that are
native. It is significant of this tendency that when, a few years since,
an enterprising Parisian journal hung in its _salle_ the portraits of one
hundred and thirty-one actresses, etc., and invited the votes of the
public by ballot as to the most beautiful of them, not one of the three
women who came out at the head of the poll was French. A dancer of Belgian
origin (Cléo de Merode) was by far at the head with over 3000 votes,
followed by an American from San Francisco (Sybil Sanderson), and then a
Polish woman.
FOOTNOTES:
[134] Figured in Mau's _Pompeii_, p. 174.
[135] As a native of Lukunor said to the traveler Mertens, "It has the
same object as your clothes, to please the women."
[136] "The greatest provocations of lust are from our apparel," as Burton
states (_Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Sec. II, Mem.
II, Subs. III),
illustrating this proposition with immense learning.
Stanley Hall
(_American Journal of Psychology_, vol. ix, Part III, pp. 365 _et seq._)
has some interesting observations on the various psychic influences of
clothing; cf. Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_,
Teil II, pp. 330 et seq.
[137] _History of Human Marriage_, Chapter IX, especially p, 201. We have
a striking and comparatively modern European example of an article of
clothing designed to draw attention to the sexual sphere in the codpiece
(the French _braguette_), familiar to us through fifteenth and sixteenth
century pictures and numerous allusions in Rabelais and in Elizabethan
literature. This was originally a metal box for the protection of the
sexual organs in war, but subsequently gave place to a leather case only
worn by the lower classes, and became finally an elegant article of
fashionable apparel, often made of silk and adorned with ribbons, even
with gold and jewels. (See, e.g., Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der
Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil I, p. 159.)
[138] A correspondent in Ceylon has pointed out to me that in the Indian
statues of Buddha, Vishnu, goddesses, etc., the necklace always covers the
nipples, a sexually attractive adornment being thus at the same time the
guardian of the orifices of the body. Crawley (_The Mystic Rose_, p. 135)
regards mutilations as in the nature of permanent amulets or charms.
[139] Mantegazza, in his discussion of this point, although an ardent
admirer of feminine beauty, decides that woman's form is not, on the
whole, more beautiful than man's. See Appendix to Cap.
IV of _Fisiologia
della Donna_.
[140] For a discussion of the anthropology of the feminine pelvis, see
Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, bd. 1. Sec. VI.
[141] Ploss and Bartels, loc. cit.; Deniker, _Revue d'Anthropologie_,
January 15, 1889, and _Races of Man_, p. 93.
[142] Darwin.
[143] G.F. Watts, "On Taste in Dress," _Nineteenth Century_, 1883.
[144] From mediæval times onwards there has been a tendency to treat the
gluteal region with contempt, a tendency well marked in speech and custom
among the lowest classes in Europe to-day, but not easily traceable in
classic times. Dühren (_Das Geschlechtsleben in England_, bd. II, pp. 359
et seq.) brings forward quotations from æsthetic writers and others
dealing with the beauty of this part of the body.
[145] Sonnini, _Voyage, etc._, vol. i, p. 308.
[146] Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, bd. 1, Sec. III; Mantegazza,
_Fisiologia della Donna_, Chapter III.
[147] Bloch brings together various interesting quotations concerning the
farthingale and the crinoline. (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia
Sexualis_, Teil I, p. 156.) He states that, like most other feminine
fashions in dress, it was certainly invented by prostitutes.
[148] The racial variations in the form and character of the breasts are
great, and there are considerable variations even among Europeans. Even as
regards the latter our knowledge is, however, still very vague and
incomplete; there is here a fruitful field for the medical anthropologist.
Ploss and Bartels have brought together the existing data (_Das Weib_, bd.
I, Sec. VIII). Stratz also discusses the subject (_Die Schönheit das
Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapter X).
[149] _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, p.
28.
[150] These devices are dealt with and illustrations given by Ploss and
Bartels, _Das Weib_ (loc. cit.).
[151] See, e.g., _Parerga und Paralipomena_, bd. I, p.
189, and bd. 2, p.
482. Moll has also discussed this point (_Untersuchungen über die Libido
Sexualis_, bd. I, pp. 384 et seq.).
[152] Speaking of some South American tribes, he remarks (_Travels_,
English translations, 1814, vol. iii. p. 236) that they
"have as great an
antipathy to the beard as the Eastern nations hold it in reverence. This
antipathy is derived from the same source as the predilection for flat
foreheads, which is seen in so singular a manner in the statues of the
Aztec heroes and divinities. Nations attach the idea of beauty to
everything which particularly characterizes their own physical
conformation, their natural physiognomy." See also Westermarck, _History
of Marriage_, p. 261. Ripley (_Races of Europe_, pp. 49, 202) attaches
much importance to the sexual selection founded on a tendency of this
kind.
[153] "Differences of race are irreducible," Abel Hermant remarks
(_Confession d'un Enfant d'Hier_, p. 209), "and between two beings who
love each other they cannot fail to produce exceptional and instructive
reactions. In the first superficial ebullition of love, indeed, nothing
notable may be manifested, but in a fairly short time the two lovers,
innately hostile, in striving to approach each other strike against an
invisible partition which separates them. Their sensibilities are
divergent; everything in each shocks the other; even their anatomical
conformation, even the language of their gestures; all is foreign."
[154] C.H. Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, fourteenth
edition, Chapter XII.
[155] See, e.g., Sergi, _The Mediterranean Race_, pp.
59-75.
[156] Sergi (_The Mediterranean Race_, Chapter 1), by an analysis of
Homer's color epithets, argues that in very few cases do they involve
fairness; but his attempt scarcely seems successful, although most of
these epithets are undoubtedly vague and involve a certain range of
possible color.
[157] Léchat's study of the numerous realistic colored statues recently
discovered in Greece (summarized in _Zentralblatt für Anthropologie_,
1904, ht. 1, p. 22) shows that with few exceptions the hair is fair.
[158] Renier, _Il Tipo Estetico_, pp. 127 et seq. In another book, _Les
Femmes Blondes selon les Peintres de l'Ecole de Venise_, par deux
Venitiens (one of these "Venetians" being Armand Baschet), is brought
together much information concerning the preference for blondes in
literature, together with a great many of the recipes anciently used for
making the hair fair.
[159] J. Houdoy, _La Beauté des Femmes dans la Littérature et dans l'Art
du XIIe au XVIe Siècle_, 1876, pp. 32 et seq.
[160] Houdoy, op. cit., pp. 41 et seq.
[161] Houdoy, op. cit., p. 83.
[162] Brantôme, _Vie des Dames Galantes_, Discours II.
[163] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Sec. II, Mem.
II, Subs. II.
[164] It is significant that Burton (_Anatomy of Melancholy_, loc. cit.),
while praising golden hair, also argues that "of all eyes black are moist
amiable," quoting many examples to this effect from classic and later
literature.
[165] "Relative Abilities of the Fair and the Dark,"
_Monthly Review_,
August, 1901; cf. H. Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, p. 215.
[166] Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, p.
217.
[167] Bloch (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II,
pp. 261 et seq.) brings together some facts bearing on the admiration for
negresses in Paris and elsewhere.
III.
Beauty not the Sole Element in the Sexual Appeal of Vision--Movement--The
Mirror--Narcissism--Pygmalionism--Mixoscopy--The Indifference of Women to
Male Beauty--The Significance of Woman's Admiration of Strength--The
Spectacle of Strength is a Tactile Quality made Visible.
Our discussion of the sensory element of vision in human sexual selection
has been mainly an attempt to disentangle the chief elements of beauty in
so far as beauty is a stimulus to the sexual instinct.
Beauty by no means
comprehends the whole of the influences which make for sexual allurement
through vision, but it is the point at which all the most powerful and
subtle of these are focussed; it represents a fairly definite complexus,
appealing at once to the sexual and to the æsthetic impulses, to which no
other sense can furnish anything in any degree analogous. It is because
this conception of beauty has arisen upon it that vision properly occupies
the supreme position in man from the point of view which we here occupy.
Beauty is thus the chief, but it is not the sole, element in the sexual
appeal of vision. In all parts of the world this has always been well
understood, and in courtship, in the effort to arouse tumescence, the
appeals to vision have been multiplied and at the same time aided by
appeals to the other senses. Movement, especially in the form of dancing,
is the most important of the secondary appeals to vision. This is so well
recognized that it is scarcely necessary to insist upon it here; it may
suffice to refer to a single typical example. The most decent of
Polynesian dances, according to William Ellis, was the _hura_, which was
danced by the daughters of chiefs in the presence of young men of rank
with the hope of gaining a future husband. "The daughters of the chiefs,
who were the dancers on these occasions, at times amounted to five or six,
though occasionally only one exhibited her symmetry of figure and
gracefulness of action. Their dress was singular, but elegant. The head
was ornamented with a fine and beautiful braid of human hair, wound round
the head in the form of a turban. A triple wreath of scarlet, white, and
yellow flowers adorned the head-dress. A loose vest of spotted cloth
covered the lower part of the bosom. The tihi, of fine white stiffened
cloth frequently edged with a scarlet border, gathered like a large frill,
passed under the arms and reached below the waist; while a handsome fine
cloth, fastened round the waist with a band or sash, covered the feet. The
breasts were ornamented with rainbow-colored mother-of-pearl shells, and a
covering of curiously wrought network and feathers. The music of the hura
was the large and small drum and occasionally the flute.
The movements
were generally slow, but always easy and natural, and no exertion on the
part of the performers was wanting to render them graceful and
attractive."[168] We