should be blond and fine like gold wire…” (92). It’s genetically impossible for everyone to be born with blond hair and blue eyes, so the solution to solve that problem was to wear herbal essences as make-up.
The rebirth known as the Renaissance was a time when, “…feminine beauty was depicted in art through emotional content and by physiognomy alone” (93). The Renaissance was the rebirth of countries that were still stuck in the dark ages. Even though the Renaissance was a time of secularism artist still experimented with the Greeks’ formula, when it came to their paintings. Being a patron and a noble man/woman, you were well respected in the community and women who were known in the community were considered beautiful. In the Renaissance, to be beautiful, your face must be visible, “to be recognized as a great beauty, a woman’s face must be familiar enough for public recognition” (93).
Queen Elizabeth I made it acceptable for women to wear cosmetics. All the women followed her by dying their hair, plucking their eyebrows, and applying make-up to their cheeks. Also along with maintaining this appearance, they also wanted to have good breath by mixing concoctions to smear on their teeth. Women at this time would try anything to look visually appealing; “women of all levels of society were known to use concoctions such as burnt hog bones mixed with oil poppy in search of the best bleach for whitening the skin of their face and neck” (93). Books were even published to tell women how to mix concoctions and dye their hair with sulfuric acid. The attitude towards cosmetics in the 17th century was ambivalent, but still, “women aspired to pale complexions because tan skin was associated with country women forced to work outdoors and not with the wealthy leisure classes” (93).
Women who followed behind Queen Elizabeth, did some of the most extreme things just to look like her, Shakespeare, however, believed that natural beauty is the way to go; “seventeenth century writers referred to cosmetics as ‘fucus’, a Latin term meaning false color” (93). Shakespeare was inspired by the women around him to write Sonnet 130. In Sonnet 130, Shakespeare explains that everyone is beautiful in their on way and that the world will not end if you do not have natural red lips and pale skin. Instead of following Queen Elizabeth, be your own individual, and beauty is not only defined by your physical appearance. Sonnet 130 was Shakespeare’s response to society at the time. The woman is considered ugly to society, with dark skin and bad breath, to Shakespeare her flaws is what makes her beautiful and rare. As said in sonnet 130, “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare/ as any she belied with false compare” (lines 13-14). Women are misrepresented by false comparison by well known women such as Queen Elizabeth.
By the 19th century people started to recognize the relationship between beauty and sexuality, “Victorians inherited all of the earlier western beliefs about feminine beauty from the Greek myth Aphrodite, which associated beauty with love or sexual desire…” (95). Since cosmetics were associated to prostitution according to Pandora’s myth, Victorians were skeptical about using make-up, so they decided to focus on the enhancing of the body. Some Victorians argued that, “a pretty figure is really a much more valuable gift than a pretty face as it lasts so much longer” (95). Instead of applying make0up externally, women would “drank vinegar, chalk, or even arsenic to produce a delicate complexion” (95). Faces that were admired and considered beautiful by the Victorians are similar to those seen in contemporary fashion illustrations.
At the turn of the century, “voluptuous faces and bodies were favored” (96) along with the Greek classical ideal of beauty. Women who had these characteristics were photographed for Europeans ads, but people in America did not appreciate European looks. To the American public, women with large muscular bodies with fair complexions, large noses, and thick lips were not found attractive. Due to advertisements in America, women wanted to emulate features such as “high cheekbones, emphasized by rouge beneath them, plucked eyebrows and an etched red mouth contrasting with white skin” (95). Women were inspired by icons such as Marilyn Monroe, with a soft youthful look. From then on the standards of physical beauty became less rigid. Over the years, magazines have published a variety of racial ethnic, and individual looks; but “certain faces are consistently admired while others are universally rejected” (97).
Sonnet 130 shows the romanticized image of ideal beauty in Shakespeare’s time strongly mirrors modern media’s fictitious images, but Shakespeare’s portrayal of the role of beauty goes against contemporary and modern beliefs. As time changes so do trends of beauty so “in the quest for beauty we go to extremes – studying, copying, and experimenting…” (98) looking for the next ideal. There is no such thing as perfection, there are flaws in everyone, so “the perfect features identified by the Greeks or the exotic qualities of today’s beauties may capture our attention but, in reality, a beloved face less than perfect is often found beautiful” (98).
