matriarch
Rotund retiree
- Joined
- May 25, 2003
- Posts
- 22,743
I found this article in a weekly magazine, years and years ago, but through all my housemoves and downsizing, I kept it. I guess it meant something to me, so once more, I'm going to share:
The Rebirth of Venus
Big is still Beautiful
by Frances Bond
I've thrown away my diet books and banned lettuce leaves from the kitchen. After all, five hundred years ago, the great artists would have loved me - just as I am!
Last week, I had a revelation. St. Paul had his on the road to Damascus, but I experienced mine in the public library.
I was looking for a slimmers' cookbook. You know the kind: "One hundred and one ways to serve a lettuce leaf." My morning view in the full-length bathroom mirror had so depressed me I had demolished two cream doughnuts at lunch-time, so I was suffering from a guilty conscience.
I browsed disconsolately through the books. I just wasn't in the mood for watercress and raw mushroom salad. I moved heavily across to the oversized book sectio. Might be something interesting, and anyway, it was the right section for me, wasn't it?
This section contained masses of art books. I picked one out idly and flipped over the pages. That's when the scales fell from my eyes and I experienced my revelation!
The book contained picture after picture of beautiful, nude, LARGE women. They lolled opulently on velvet cushions; they sprawled on satin-covered couches, wearing nothing but smiles. Occasionally one had a wisp of gauze draped over strategic areas or perhaps a rose pinned to her luxuriant locks.
Without exception, they possessed well rounded arms and legs, dimpled posteriors and voluptuous curves. Just think - these women were painted because they were considered the ultimate in beauty.
I took down another book. The first page I looked at showed "The Three Graces" by Reubens. Believe me - not one of those Three Graces would have struggled into a size 18! This needed some thinking about. I had the two books stamped and took them home to study.
I got some funny looks on the bus. The typical housewife, clutching a shopping bag in one hand, and outsized books colourfully embellised with nudes in the other.
Back home I dumped the shopping and pored over the books. All the models seemed beautiful and BIG. Titian painted large, sensual, naked ladies and usually called them "Venus", which made them classical, so that was all right. But really, they were painted to give pleasure to the beholder. These plump beauties seemed supremely aware of their charms. They smiled from their draped couches.
It could be argued, I suppose, that it all happened centuries ago, that things are different now. I wonder! Renoir painted his ladies not so long ago. "The Bather and The Griffin" shows a dark-haired young beauty who was breathtakingly lovely, but again, she must have been at least 46 inches around the hips.
In 1917 Modigliani created a public scandal by showing a nude of Junoesque proportions in his first one-man show. Soon after looking at these masterpieces. I reached the section in the books which dealt with Picasso, which is a different story altogether.
Mind you, in his 'blue' period he painted some rather lovely nudes, before he 'developed' and started painting eyes where the navel should be!
All the painters mentioned were artists who revered beauty. They were also men and I don't think men change much in their likes and dislikes, over the years. Do we struggle to stay thin for men? I think not.
Men raved over Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe in the not-too-distant past. They hankered over Sophia Loren. Do you remember that film she made where she stood deep in paddy fields, all glorious curves and billows?
Lynda Baron, who played the well-upholstered Gladys Emmanuel in the television series "Open All Hours" gets sackfuls of fan mail. Of course - it could be the nurse's uniform!
We modern women are all in danger of being brain-washed by the flood of advertisements relating to slimming aids. Newspapers, television programmes, even dress designers all tell us to think thin, thin, thin. Well - I, for one, have decided to stop trying to look like a half-starved adolescent. Not that I intend to flow gently into a shapeless lump, but I do feel it is possible to be an attractive, shapely, large lady.
I think quite a few of us are beginning to see the light of reason. Apparently some London manufacturers have started producing larger, plumper figures in their range of plaster models. We also have in the United Kingdom an official "Miss Big is Beautiful".
It would be pleasant if more clothes' shops would stock youthful and attractive outfits for larger ladies. If only they would realise that catering for big women could lead to big business.
In the meantime I am starting my own revolution. Tomorrow I will take the art books back to the library. Then I'll pop into that little shop in the High Street and buy the beautiful shawl I spotted last week - the gorgeous deep-blue one with splahses of poppies drifting across it.
Very sort of impressionist - if you know what I mean! I shall wear it at the next party I go to, though I do think a rose in the hair might be overdoing things just a little. I feel a different person already. Just to celebrate the "new me" I might even treat myself to a cream doughnut on the way home....
As I said, this was written many, many years ago - probably over 20, but her comments and observations are just as applicable now.
Me? I'm with her. I have no chance of losing my Reubenesque figure...I'll just carry on disguising it with my choice of clothes.......and continue to enjoy all those foods the clothes horse models are forbidden. I know who I'd rather be.
The Rebirth of Venus
Big is still Beautiful
by Frances Bond
I've thrown away my diet books and banned lettuce leaves from the kitchen. After all, five hundred years ago, the great artists would have loved me - just as I am!
Last week, I had a revelation. St. Paul had his on the road to Damascus, but I experienced mine in the public library.
I was looking for a slimmers' cookbook. You know the kind: "One hundred and one ways to serve a lettuce leaf." My morning view in the full-length bathroom mirror had so depressed me I had demolished two cream doughnuts at lunch-time, so I was suffering from a guilty conscience.
I browsed disconsolately through the books. I just wasn't in the mood for watercress and raw mushroom salad. I moved heavily across to the oversized book sectio. Might be something interesting, and anyway, it was the right section for me, wasn't it?
This section contained masses of art books. I picked one out idly and flipped over the pages. That's when the scales fell from my eyes and I experienced my revelation!
The book contained picture after picture of beautiful, nude, LARGE women. They lolled opulently on velvet cushions; they sprawled on satin-covered couches, wearing nothing but smiles. Occasionally one had a wisp of gauze draped over strategic areas or perhaps a rose pinned to her luxuriant locks.
Without exception, they possessed well rounded arms and legs, dimpled posteriors and voluptuous curves. Just think - these women were painted because they were considered the ultimate in beauty.
I took down another book. The first page I looked at showed "The Three Graces" by Reubens. Believe me - not one of those Three Graces would have struggled into a size 18! This needed some thinking about. I had the two books stamped and took them home to study.
I got some funny looks on the bus. The typical housewife, clutching a shopping bag in one hand, and outsized books colourfully embellised with nudes in the other.
Back home I dumped the shopping and pored over the books. All the models seemed beautiful and BIG. Titian painted large, sensual, naked ladies and usually called them "Venus", which made them classical, so that was all right. But really, they were painted to give pleasure to the beholder. These plump beauties seemed supremely aware of their charms. They smiled from their draped couches.
It could be argued, I suppose, that it all happened centuries ago, that things are different now. I wonder! Renoir painted his ladies not so long ago. "The Bather and The Griffin" shows a dark-haired young beauty who was breathtakingly lovely, but again, she must have been at least 46 inches around the hips.
In 1917 Modigliani created a public scandal by showing a nude of Junoesque proportions in his first one-man show. Soon after looking at these masterpieces. I reached the section in the books which dealt with Picasso, which is a different story altogether.
Mind you, in his 'blue' period he painted some rather lovely nudes, before he 'developed' and started painting eyes where the navel should be!
All the painters mentioned were artists who revered beauty. They were also men and I don't think men change much in their likes and dislikes, over the years. Do we struggle to stay thin for men? I think not.
Men raved over Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe in the not-too-distant past. They hankered over Sophia Loren. Do you remember that film she made where she stood deep in paddy fields, all glorious curves and billows?
Lynda Baron, who played the well-upholstered Gladys Emmanuel in the television series "Open All Hours" gets sackfuls of fan mail. Of course - it could be the nurse's uniform!
We modern women are all in danger of being brain-washed by the flood of advertisements relating to slimming aids. Newspapers, television programmes, even dress designers all tell us to think thin, thin, thin. Well - I, for one, have decided to stop trying to look like a half-starved adolescent. Not that I intend to flow gently into a shapeless lump, but I do feel it is possible to be an attractive, shapely, large lady.
I think quite a few of us are beginning to see the light of reason. Apparently some London manufacturers have started producing larger, plumper figures in their range of plaster models. We also have in the United Kingdom an official "Miss Big is Beautiful".
It would be pleasant if more clothes' shops would stock youthful and attractive outfits for larger ladies. If only they would realise that catering for big women could lead to big business.
In the meantime I am starting my own revolution. Tomorrow I will take the art books back to the library. Then I'll pop into that little shop in the High Street and buy the beautiful shawl I spotted last week - the gorgeous deep-blue one with splahses of poppies drifting across it.
Very sort of impressionist - if you know what I mean! I shall wear it at the next party I go to, though I do think a rose in the hair might be overdoing things just a little. I feel a different person already. Just to celebrate the "new me" I might even treat myself to a cream doughnut on the way home....
As I said, this was written many, many years ago - probably over 20, but her comments and observations are just as applicable now.
Me? I'm with her. I have no chance of losing my Reubenesque figure...I'll just carry on disguising it with my choice of clothes.......and continue to enjoy all those foods the clothes horse models are forbidden. I know who I'd rather be.
