ARE ENGLISHWOMEN BEAUTIES?

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9119, 11 April 1908, Page 7

ARE ENGLISHWOMEN BEAUTIES?

The Warmly expressed admiration evoked in Berlin by the portraits (now on exhibition there) of beautiful Englishwomen of the days of Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, Raeburn, and Lawrence suggests two very interesting questions. Are Englishwomen more beautiful than the women of other nations? Were they more beautiful at the period to which these portraits belong (roughly from 1750 to 1830) than they are to-day? Naturally, these are questions upon which the opinions of painters should throw some light. Accordingly a representative spent some time recently in sounding the views of promient artists. “I do not consider,” said a painter of many of the famous beauties of this age, “that the English women of to-day can compare with the marvels of grace and elegance and gentle softness whom we see in the pictures of a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago. You must not give me away, of course. My fair sitters would never forgive me. But you have asked me for my frank opinion, and there it is. —Claims of Frenchwomen. —

“As to the question whether Englishwomen are better looking than those of other countries, I have never been abroad except to France, and so lam hardly a good judge. Frenchwomen are certainly better dressed. They know how to make the best of themselves, which few English women do. They are more elegant—more feminine even I should say. That is because they are content to be women. They do not play golf in all weathers, or ride hard to hounds. They never get scarlet in the face over tennis, or rush madly about a muddy field with hockey sticks in their hands. The modern Englishwoman does not want to bo beautiful. She wants to be athletic and strong.”

Another man had come in from a neighbouring studio—a black-and-white draughtsman whose pretty

girls are familiar in every home. He expressed himself thus “Surely you exaggerate. It’s true the type has changed, but there are just as many good-looking women in .England'"as'ever there were—probably more, I fancy, seeing that the standard of living is nigher than ever it was before. They aren’t so soft and elegant, perhaps, but they are healthier looking. Their eyes are brighter and their expressions more eager, and their cheeks glow with air and exercise. ”

“I was talking about beauty,” growled the painter. “I know you can make pretty pictures of the hockey girl or the girl in a golf jersey, but beauty is a different quality altogether. I maintain that it lias disappeared. ’ ’ —Pretty Workgirls.— Another portrait painter, cdught at the Arts Club in Dover street, just before dinner, was inclined to

agree. “Pretty girls and pretty women you see more constantly in England than anywhere else. I can speak from experience, because I’ve been pretty nearly ail over the world. Have you vere been out early, between eight agd nine o’clock, in London and seen all the typists and shopgirls and dressmakers and so on going to work? They are almost all fresh and dainty and trim, and numbars of them are really charming. In all classes, English girls are delight- ; ini to look at. I am always struck .by the fact when I come Home from abroad. But I think I understand what old meant meant about the scarcity of beautiful women. Englishwomen nowadays are too strenuous, too restless, to be beautiful. They always have ‘such a tremendous lot to do. ’ The wives of the laboring class really are hard-worked, and in the higher scoial ranks it is fashionable to pretend to be ‘fearfully rushed,’ never to have a moment to spare. A woman complained to me the other day that I had given her ‘such a hunted look.’ Well, she had a hunted look. Still, it was foolish of me to paint her as she really was, so I altered the expression and tried to make her look more placid. She • liked it much better. So did her husband. (I dare say he would have liked to see the same change in her too)! But the portrait wasn’t a bit like her. I never come across really placid women like Lady Hamilton or Miss Linley or Miss Barren in these days. I’m afraid they don’t exist.