Beauty as vitality is a very real theme, but my point was simply that it’s not a universal. I don’t think there -is- a universal standard of beauty. Women are expected to fit the current style of beauty just as they are expected to wear the current styles of clothes

.

Once beauty is objectified, you’re right. And it goes through phases. When you go back through Playboy )I know, it may not be the most P.C. source, but it is instructive on this point) and look at the body types that they put forward as “ideal”, it changed from the Fifties onward. (And contrary to a lot of popular opinion, they were never as homogeneous as some assert.) Attempting to objectively portray “what is attractive” is one of the most damnably difficullt things. In fact, it borders on impossible, because outside the narrow confines of particular line of art, what real people find attractive is not objectifiable.

And by the way, men have suffered (not as much, perhaps) from having to fit certain expectations of popular appeal. In the post-enlightenment period, it was the men who were expected to have great calves. Beards, body hair, musculature–all these things have applied to male appeal through the ages as much as breast size, leg length, waistline, etc. have for women. We overlook them because of the range of choice accorded males in all other aspects of life.

My previous line of thought was leading in a different direction; what if an artist/author had to choose between being socially responsible and creating a stronger work of art? Both the Victorian photographer and the contemporary fashion photographer found ways to make their pictures more closely depict their individual visions. Ways to make their work stronger. And considered without the context of society, there is nothing detrimental about a picture of a woman sleeping or a picture of someone very thin in an ad for clothing. They only become detrimental within the context of a society that idealizes passivity or exclusively depicts thin individuals.

If it were me, I hope I would choose social integrity over artistic integrity. But I think it would be tough to give up the realization of my vision on paper. (This could make an interesting dilemma for a character)

There are genres in which beauty or attractiveness may be important–in romance it’s usually important that the female be beautiful (the man doesn’t have to be, so long as he’s attractive). Of course it’s fun to subvert expectations by playing with these cultural agreements. Darth Vader opens his mouth (so to speak) and sounds like Gomer Pyle; the Italian thug has a mother complex and anxiety attacks; the devastatingly handsome Gilderoy Lockheart turns out to be shallow and cowardly, and so on. I think my original post was really about awareness of your own biases. I tend not to want to make my protagonists beautiful; I like interesting more. So sometimes I have to remind myself that (for whatever reason) the character I’m working on needs to be beautiful. I’m just saying, because human culture responds to beauty, that it shouldn’t be used lightly. Make a character beautiful, but know, for yourself, why you’ve done so.

My line of thought was sparked by wondering whether or not the fad could have first begun with a photographer trying to create the best photographs possible given the limitations of long exposures and other difficulties. These limitations were severe enough that, in my opinion, they cannot be excluded from an analysis of poses from this period. Victorian photographers were aware of the visual deficiencies that resulted, and many of them tried to minimize the blur from movement and unnatural stiffness. One popular Victorian pose was to have two sitters pose as if playing chess, since it created a natural reason for the sitters to be in positions that could be held for an extended period. In my opinion, the naturalness of a reclined pose and the relative ease of keeping still would have made such a pose appealing to photographers on those grounds alone. Of course, it could never have become a fad no matter what the reason for the initial pictures had been, if such a pose didn’t resonate with a number of people.

What I found interesting was that a fad, which reinforced a stereotype detrimental to women and society, could possibly have been started by an artist trying to create a better or stronger picture. In this case, I am unsure whether the photographer would have identified a passive image of women as detrimental. But, to come back to the general vicinity of Madeleine Robins’ post, I wonder what responsiblities an artist should consider reasonable? If an author knows that making all their ‘good’ characters beautiful and their ‘bad’ characters ugly will make their book stronger, does that excuse the stereotype he or she is reinforcing?

Of course, child mortality was so high in those days that the death pictures are perfectly understandable. Women also made commemorative needleworks and paper collages for their dead children, too.

You seem to be trying to explain the taste for passive woman away. I don’t understand why. Tastes differ from age to age.