Beauty's Historical Fashion Trends, by Laura

What is feminine beauty? If my wardrobe is any indication, beauty has come in an astounding variety of clothing over time. Fashions move in and out so quickly that they make for very unstable roommates. But this just as true of generations as it is of a lifetime–though in the case of generations, it’s much more difficult to tell which views of beauty have been thrown away and which ones still lurk in the closet.

Most of those who bring a historical perspective to their fashion-awareness would agree that views of beauty have shifted with changes in our conception of women and of their place in society. I’d like to point to one old view of beauty that, though discarded, seems to haunt current views, like last-season’s lavender that seems to have been so deliberately rejected by the new season’s palette that one is unable to find a single purple item in stores. It is the view of feminine beauty that evokes the characterization (offered with all of the distaste one might muster when describing something worn in the 1990s) of ‘placing women on a pedestal before the male gaze.’

‘Placing women on a pedestal’ is meant to indicate that one has made a show of reverencing women as an inspirational ideal whose heavenly attributes shine out in their very appearance, while simply masking that this ideal is very much controlled by ‘the male gaze,’ or the male-dominated version of women’s proper place in society. For example, someone might describe his deep appreciation of feminine qualities of modesty and virtue. The pedestal-wary response would be that by making women seem superior to men, such a depiction reinforces women’s inferiority. The depiction confines women to specific feminine attributes, and makes it seem as though women alone are responsible for the morality of society as a whole.

To historically pinpoint the view of beauty to which the pedestal phrase responds, we are called back over a hundred years to the Romantic period. C. S. Lewis notes that Romantic art tended to involve “[e]motions strained beyond the common pitch, and high-flown sentiments or codes of honour” (201). Expressive paintings and flowery metaphors in poetry venerated women as the angelic link connecting man to the heavenly realm. Women, along with nature, history, and other objects of veneration and mysterious transcendence, became one of many objects placed on pedestals to which to look for inspiration, adoration, and spirituality.

So, with a historical eye to views of beauty as well as a desire to understand feminine beauty in all of its richness, we now ask ourselves the following question:

Should we accept the ‘placing women on a pedestal’ phrase as an adequate critique of this time-period’s view of beauty, or not? Shall we throw Romanticism’s view of beauty into the Goodwill bin or might we see some vintage qualities in it that could potentially make it a fashion staple?

Why don’t we pose these questions to George Eliot, a woman of extraordinary taste in beauty who lived and wrote novels at the end of the nineteenth century. She brings us unique insights into Romanticism as the fashion that in her time was just becoming replaced with new ideas of beauty in accompaniment to shifts in women’s roles during industrialization. Hopefully her exploration can do better and go deeper than we do in our modern fashion-industry-like strategy of frenetically shying away from anything that is perceived to be unfashionably outdated. Eliot suggests that while there can be many worrisome effects of pedestalized beauty, it stands with other versions of beauty as a very important source of inspiration and can help cultivate appreciation of truly feminine attributes.

First we will get to know Dorothea, main character of Middlemarch who has an unquenchable zealous energy for trying to improve her own character and for serving others. Consider the way Eliot weaves the Dorothea’s physical beauty so completely with her personality and femininity and the beauty around her:

“The bright fire of dry oak-boughs burning on the dogs seemed an incongruous renewal of life and glow, –like the figure of Dorothea herself as she entered…She was glowing from her morning toilet as only healthful youth can glow: there was gem-like brightness on her coiled hair and in her hazel eyes; there was warm red life in her lips; her throat had a breathing whiteness above the differing white of the fur which itself seemed to wind about her neck and cling down her blue-gray pelisse with a tenderness gathered from her own, a sentient commingled innocence which kept its loveliness against the crystalline purity of the outdoor snow.” (394-395)

In this passage, Dorothea is a picture of breathtaking beauty, but the description does not focus on her appearance alone. Every attribute of beauty is inextricably woven with other contextual aspects. Dorothea does not introduce herself into the room by her beauty, but by the way that her beauty resonates with the warmth and vitality of the fire. The fire and Dorothea’s beauty complement one another and enhance our awareness of the beauty of both, suggesting that one purpose of feminine beauty is to remind us of the beauty of all of God’s creations.

Dorothea’s clothing not only enhances our awareness of her physical beauty; it also reflects her deep purity and virtue as a person. In the passage, Dorothea’s fur clings down her dress in a gentle way that is “gathered from” her own inner tenderness (395). This suggests that beauty is more than just physical endowment enhanced by choice of wardrobe. Beauty can act as a mirror of inner goodness, as one avenue through which we are able to perceive and appreciate that which is glorious and virtuous within humans.

Our inner beauty not only manifests itself to others through outer beauty, but it can also thereby inspire and heal them just as Dorothea’s beauty brings “renewal of life and glow” to the room when she enters it (395). Thus, in addition to pointing us toward truth and goodness, beauty can also bring truth and goodness to us simply by the ways it affects its viewers. Just like a beautiful view of a landscape or temple can bring awe and joy to the beholder, feminine beauty has the capacity to bring healing emotions and gratitude and awareness of God’s love to those who behold it.

So far, Eliot has given us a few substantial reasons why venerating women for their beauty has an important place in bringing us to appreciate God’s creations, to love truth and goodness, and to experience healing and peace. The pedestal might have an important place in retaining some of the glorious aspects of beauty and their place in what it means to be feminine.

At the same time, Eliot is conscious of the dangers of making too much of an ideal of feminine beauty. Dorothea’s beauty becomes a curse to Will Ladislaw, whose young and impulsive love for Dorothea arises in spite of her discouragement of it and (shockingly) despite her married status. Against his better judgment, Will is unable to muster the self-control to move away from Dorothea and make his own way in the world, always retaining a hope that her husband will die and he can finally have her as his own. As a result of his actions, Ladislaw fails to grow and mature as a person, and Dorothea and all those around him suffer.

In the context of the relationship between Will Ladislaw and Dorothea, Eliot sees as much danger as goodness in the idealization of feminine beauty. But Elliot does not leave the benefits and drawbacks of the pedestaled woman in this dire place. Her description of the relationship between Mary Garth and Fred Vincy suggests that there are many positive possibilities for feminine virtues to play an important role in inspiring young romantic partners to make the healthy transition into adulthood.

Mary Garth acts as an interesting counterpart to Dorothea. Dorothea’s isolation as a landowning lady reinforces her untouched innocence and class-afforded generosity, while Mary’s poor upbringing in an industrious family in the local town has brought her wit and maturity. One large point of contrast between the two is that while Dorothea is gracefully beautiful, Mary is stalky and plain.

Though Mary lacks stereotypical feminine charms, she has her own virtues that endear the reader to her as the story develops. With Mary, Eliot shows us that feminine grace and phyiscal beauty are not the only windows into the goodness of a person. They are also not the only indications of feminine beauty. There is room for both Dorothea’s version of beauty and for Mary’s version of beauty in Elliot’s Middlemarch. Eliot describes Mary’s features thus:

“[S]he was brown; her curly dark hair was rough and stubborn; her stature was low…Advancing womanhood had tempered her plainness, which was of a good human sort, such as the mothers of our race have very commonly worn in all latitudes under a more or less becoming headgear. Rembrandt would have painted her with pleasure, and would have made her broad features look out of the canvas with intelligent honesty. For honesty, truth-telling fairness, was Mary’s reigning virtue: she neither tried to create illusions, nor indulged in them for her own behoof, and when she was in a good mood she had humour enough to laugh at herself.” (163)

There is no pretence in this description to Mary having anything but plain features. And yet somehow Mary’s appearance is just as true to her inner goodness as is Dorothea’s. While Dorothea’s appearance evoked a sense of her delicacy and purity, Mary’s features are as completely non-pretentious as is her honest heart.

Later in the novel Fred describes a roguish look that Mary very often gives him, explaining “that look of hers was very dear to him, though the eyes were nothing more than clear windows where observation sat laughingly” (199). There is nothing strikingly beautiful about Mary’s eyes, even to Fred, yet in their very un-striking character Mary’s eyes are beautiful symbols of the open and honest humor with which she teasingly censures Fred. We see from Fred’s love of her features as they mark her personality that Mary’s beauty of soul comes out in her interactions if not in her appearance, and it is through her conversations that her features are most directly tied to that beauty. It is a beauty that comes through in action, in the process of living virtuously and beautifully.

Mary and Fred have a much more healthy fate than do Dorothea and Will. Mary aptly takes advantage of the courting relationship between her and Fred to withhold expressions of love from Fred until he proves himself to be a responsible man. Here we learn one final lesson from Eliot about the power of beauty to inspire. Fred’s adoration of Mary motivates him to become the man that he himself desperately wants to become. Their relationship provides a beautiful example of how gender can play an integral role in a complementary pair inspiring and encouraging one another to grow. Because of Mary’s high standards, Fred is brought to a more substantial level of growth than he could have achieved on his own, and he grows into a person more worthy to provide for Mary for a lifetime.

With Dorothea and Mary, Eliot offers us different versions of beauty, each with their own unique benefits and drawbacks. Dorothea’s charms teach us to appreciate distinctly feminine qualities, and to associate them with other aspects of character and creation that are similarly beautiful. Through Mary’s contrasting plainness, we learn to see beauty in new and complementary ways, becoming sensitive to the beauty that arises in association with living one’s life with honesty and character. Both versions of beauty are important to the development and edification of other characters of the novel, and both suggest an important tie between beauty and character in the cultivation of womanly traits of daughters of God.

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Eliot, George. Middlemarch. Century Edition. Vol. IV. New York: Century, 1910.

Lewis, C. S. The Pilgrim’s Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism. London: William B. Eerdmans, 1933.