AUSTRALIAN BEAUTY

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2187, 27 June 1914, Page 13

AUSTRALIAN BEAUTY

A DISTINCT TYPE. ' That we have a distinct type of feminine beauty in Australia, and especially in Victoria, is undoubted, but it is only great portrait , painters that could deal with it in concrete form, states N a writer in tho "Australasian." Should a Michaolangelo, a Velasquez, a Raeburn, a' Leonardo, or a I'aul Veronese, arise iii our midst it would bo profound-! ly interesting to note his type, should he paint, say, a Madonna, and had to take an Australian girl as his model. Wo can look back on tho work of tho great artists, and understand how precisely and faithfully they copied the fashions of the day in which they drcssod tho Madonnas and their saints, and feel almost sure that they copied the faces from real life with tho samo exactitude. Michaelnngelo's Madonnas arc coura-tceous-lookinp; women, with regular feaUires. smooth foreheads, and dainty I mouths. Leonardo's women always look learned, subtle, and emotional. Velasquez painted women with dull, unresponsive, eyes,'and most of his sitters, who were drawn from court circles, express no' emotion in their countenances, Tan Dyck's women have all. well-shaped patrician noses and hands,, ■hands as beautiful as they could possibly be drawn or painted. Tho eyes lie limned were somewhat lozengeshaped, but the lips were beautiful in form and colour. ■ Sir Peter Lely's and Sir Godfrey Kneller's ladies are just tho beauties that would attract men, whilo Raphael's Madonnas are wide-eyed, their heads slightly inclined to one side in dignified manner, and slightly touched with humility. . The Australian Cirl. ' It seems almost certain that if one of these great artists was commissioned to paint a typical.Australian girl, ho would take care, to depict a healthy face not perhaps with much colour, but with sufficient to mark the certain glow . that comes from a sano. mind ■ in a sound body.' The noso would bo* aquiline, , rather thin on the front, but with tho Grecian square tip and well-defined nostrils. The forehead would not be high, but it would rise almost perpendicular-, ly from tho eyebrows, and be unruffled. The chin would be dominant, smallj but beautifully shaped, and flow fully in to the neck by most graceful curves. The eyes would range froni brown to grey, Kith dim lashes, but with admirably clear whites, and an alert, liquid eye'ball. The ears would, he small, wellset, and lie close to tho head. . The •skin, which 'is .often a weak point, would be pure in colour on the neck and behind the ears. The hair would incline from brown to auburn, but it would not wave naturally, nor would it be plentiful.. The teeth, also a weak point, would, ■if perfect, be singularly beautiful. . •, : Indicative of the period. . Accepting this description for the mo- ' melit as correct, it is interesting to ask ourselves to which period of the world's art does it belong. It has nothing to do with Sir Joshua Reynold's overhealthy, rather pudding-faced, blackeyed, patricians, nor with tho sentimental and engaging beauty of Roraney, Racburn. and Gainsborough's young women. Taken altogether, it may bo said to follow in most of its aspects the Venetian women of the Renaissance type. Tho virginal.typo, precise, clear as a bell, ingenuous, and fervent. A face in which mifid and heart rule, as they surely do in those' .of Leonardo <Ie Vinci's' emotional and ■ symmetrical faces, that his.great art could exalt without losing anything of the mind that lies behind it. ■ : ' '■ . ■ ' That-the contour 1 of faces' changes from time to time seems'..'undoubted. For' instance,' 'tjlke jthe, late'-'Quren Vic- V toria's reigiii' 7r Af'tlic' beginning of it painters and black and white draughtsmen made the female face quite ovalassecii in "Wihterlialter's paintings, and in the sketches in the papers of the period. Towards the middle of the reign they became round, and John Leech and others so depicted thorn in "Punch." Then came Du Maurier, who found them nearly square, and now C. D: Gibson follows Du Maurier. The chango in facial form suggests advancement on the part of womankind. The oval face belonged to the prunes and m-ism period, the round to the time of freedom. from parental apron-strings, and the square to the strong athletic sxirl of the present day. . From all this it may bo argued that beauty is filwavs changing, and that nresent chsngps in the social and moral conditions of humanity are going to brine; about the triumph of a iiew ideal of feminine beauty,' conformable to tho evolution of women and the changed tastes of men.