_The Perfect Woman, Nobly Planned_
Using the head-length as a unit of measurement, a prominent portrait
painter tabulates as follows the proportions of a perfectly formed
woman:
A woman should measure in height 5 feet 5 inches.
Eight heads is the proper height,—that is, the head measured from the
top of the forehead to the tip of the chin.
From shoulder to shoulder she should measure 2 of her heads.
Her waist should measure 1½ heads.
Her hips should be twice as broad as the length of her head.
Under the arms the bust measurement should be 34 inches; outside the
arms, 42 inches.
Upper arm should be 12 inches long; the forearm, 9 inches long.
A more reliable authority, Dr. George McClellan, in his splendid quarto,
“Anatomy in its Relation to Art,” with due regard to the mean or average
of the anthropometric scale, makes the height 7½ heads; the width
between the shoulders equal to the width between the hips, and each
equal to the length of 1¾ heads.
The measurements of “the statue that enchants the world,” the Venus de
Medici, are: Height, 63 inches; breadth of neck, 4 inches; breadth of
shoulders, 16 inches; waist, 9½ inches; hips, 13 inches.
Professor Gottfried Schadow of the Royal Academy of Arts, in Berlin,
gives in his figure of an artistically formed woman, the following
measurements: Height, 63½ inches; breadth of neck, 3¾ inches; shoulders,
15 inches; waist 9 inches; hips, 13½ inches.
Professor Sargeant, with several thousand tabulated life measurements in
hand, produced a composite figure of the young American girl with these
measurements: Height, 63½ inches; breadth of neck, 3.8 inches; girth of
neck, 12.1 inches; breadth of shoulders, 14.7 inches; breadth of waist,
8.6 inches; girth of waist, 24.6 inches; breadth of hips, 13.1 inches;
girth of hips, 35.4 inches; girth of calf, 13.3 inches; girth of upper
arm, 10.1 inches; girth of thigh, 21.4 inches, and forearm, 9.2 inches.
Miss Anna Wood has given measurements closely similar to those of
Professor Sargeant, in her composite figure of the Wellesley College
girl, being averaged from the measurements of over 2,000 young women.
Given the height, proportion, and weight of an average physique for the
man and woman, what should be the attitude or posture of such an
individual, especially when standing? By posture is meant a position of
equilibrium of the body which can be maintained for some time, such as
standing, sitting, or lying.
For the maintenance of the erect posture the following conditions must
be realized: (1) The corresponding halves of the body must be in the
same anatomical relation; (2) the centre of gravity of the whole body
must fall just in front of the last lumbar vertebra. That the first of
these two conditions may be realized there must be a well-developed and
symmetrical skeleton and a corresponding symmetrical development of the
muscles on the two sides of the body. That the second condition may be
realized, there must be such a development of the extensor muscles on
the back of the body as will be sufficient to antagonize the flexor
muscles on the front of the body.
These conditions are not always realized, and hence certain physical
defects are observable, such as obliquity of the head, elevation or
depression of the shoulder, curvature of the spine, and so forth.
An old Spanish writer said that “a woman is quite perfect and absolute
in beauty if she has thirty good points.” Here they are:
Three things white—the skin, the teeth, the hands.
Three black—the eyes, the eyebrows, the eyelashes.
Three red—the lips, the cheeks, the nails.
Three long—the body, the hair, the hands.
Three short—the teeth, the ears, the feet.
Three broad—the chest, the brow, the space between the eyebrows.
Three narrow—the mouth, the waist, the instep.
Three large—the arm, the loin, the limb.
Three fine—the fingers, the hair, the lips.
Three small—the bust, the nose, the head.
_Grecian and American Standards_
What are the measurements of the physically perfect man? Opinions
differ. Ralph Rose, a young athlete from the University of Michigan, has
been brought forward and presented to critical inspection as a fair type
of the perfect athlete, according to the practical American
anthropometric system of averages, and therefore it may be of interest
to compare him with the ideal of youthful strength and beauty of classic
art, as shown in the statue of the Apollo Belvedere. A glance at the
subjoined table where the measurements of young Rose are set over
against those of a model of the Apollo of like height—that is, 77
inches, or 6 feet 5 inches—shows how far the college chart standard
differs from the ideal of the Greek artist.
ROSE. APOLLO.
Inches. Inches.
Breadth of shoulders 18.8 22.8
Breadth of chest 13.4 15.4
Depth of Chest 10.0 11.3
Girth of neck 15.9 16.8
Girth of chest 44.5 38.0
Girth of waist 39.0 32.0
Right upper arm 14.0 14.3
Left upper arm 13.6 14.3
Right forearm 12.6 12.9
Left forearm 12.1 12.9
Right thigh 23.9 25.4
Left thigh 25.6 24.5
Right calf 16.8 17.0
Left calf 17.0 16.8
The measurements of the Apollo Belvedere’s limbs correspond in a general
way with those of the American athlete, but in some particulars Rose
falls somewhat short of the Greek divinity. Rose’s shoulders are 4
inches narrower, his chest 5 inches less from side to side and 1.3
inches less through. His neck, too, measures nearly an inch less around.
This shows that Rose’s figure and development are far from the Greek
ideal. He is not so clean cut. His shoulders are much narrower and his
waist larger. His chest shows larger to the tape, but this is due to the
big breast and shoulder muscles that enable him to throw the weights. If
the Greek god could put off his marble solidity and blow on a lung
tester he would reveal far greater lung capacity than could the young
American. The measurements from breastbone to backbone and from side rib
to side rib tell the true story of chest capacity.
_The Venus de Medici a Questionable Type_
This famous statue, when found in the seventeenth century in the Villa
of Hadrian, near Tivoli, was broken into eleven pieces; only the hands
and a portion of the arms were wanting. It was taken to Florence by
Cosmo de Medici, and placed in the tribune of the Uffizi.
Lübke, in his “History of Art,” says: “The goddess displays the
lineaments of her shapely form to the eye completely nude, yet not in
naïve self-forgetfulness, or in the sublime abandon of conquest, but
with conscious premeditation; not without a certain shame-faced coyness
which is expressed in the position of the arms, with their effort at
concealment of the bosom and thighs, and in the coy turning of the head
to one side. With all the delicacy and perfection of artistic finish,
with all the noble rhythmical proportion of the limbs, this trait, which
betrays the calculating coquette, has but a cold effect.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne says: “She is very beautiful, very satisfactory, and
has a fresh and new charm about her, unreached by any cast or copy. I
felt a kind of tenderness for her—an affection, not as if she were a
woman, but all womanhood in one. Her modest attitude—which, before I saw
her, I had not liked, deeming it might be an artificial shame—is partly
what unmakes her as a heathen goddess, and softens her into woman. There
is a slight degree of alarm, too, in her face; not that she really
thinks that anybody is looking at her; yet the idea has flitted through
her mind and startled her a little. Her face is so beautiful and so
intellectual that it is not dazzled out of sight by her form. The world
has not grown weary of her in all these ages, and mortal man may look on
her with new delight from infancy to old age.”
If anything is safe in this iconoclastic age it might be supposed to be
such reputation for beauty and grace. Connoisseurs of all nations have
joined in doing homage to the ancient sculptor’s skill. How many
visitors to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence have stood, Murray or
Appleton in hand, gazing at the undraped figure without a thought of
questioning these learned persons! But of late years there have been
sceptics daring enough to class this with the Apollo Belvedere as a
sample of ancient art that has been “monstrously overrated,” and now
comes no less an authority than Holman Hunt to assure us that the Venus
de Medici, to use a popular phrase, “won’t do.” There is a little
anecdote attaching to this expression of opinion.
Some years ago, at the house of Sir Richard Owen, the great naturalist,
Mr. Hunt met that professor of sanitary science, the late Sir Edwin
Chadwick, who began a conversation thus: “As a Commissioner of Health, I
must profess myself altogether opposed to the artistic theory of beauty.
There is the Venus de Medici, which you artists regard as giving the
perfect type of female form. I should require that a typical statue with
such pretensions should bear evidence of perfect power of life, with
steady prospect of health and signs of mental vigor; but she has
neither. Her chest is narrow, indicating unrobust lungs, her limbs are
without evidence of due training of muscles, her shoulders are not well
braced up, and her cranium, and her face, too, are deficient in all
traits of intellect. She would be a miserable mistress of a house and a
contemptible mother.” But the listener assured the sage critic that he
had made a most artistic criticism of the statue, and that his auditor
would join in every word as to his standard of requirements. Mr. Hunt
was aware, he said, that he was talking heresy to the mass of persons
who accepted the traditional jargon of the cognoscenti on trust, but in
his opinion “the work belongs to the decadence of Roman virtue and
vitality, and its merit lies alone in the rendering of a voluptuous
being without mind or soul.” If no authorities of equal weight will
stand forth in defence of this marble lady, it is to be feared that the
famous Venus de Medici will soon be ranked among impostors. The strange
part of the matter is that it has taken more than two hundred years to
find her out.