WHEN IS A WOMAN MOST BEAUTIFUL?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16986, 9 March 1923, Page 10

WHEN IS A WOMAN MOST BEAUTIFUL?

OPINIONS OF EXPERTS. Heroines on the stage or in fiction must, still be beautiful, but- they need not be young, says a writer in the “ New York Times.” l’n spite of the tired business man, the fashion of 1922 prefers the woman to the girl. Composite opinion of seventeen authorities consulted cm the subject fixes thirtytwo years as the age at which women reach the topnoteh of the beauty scale. The seventeen arbiters include authors, painters, sculptors, photographers, play producers and actors. Several of these denied that- beauty existed at all in a woman under twenty-five. A majority voted that the highest beauty of expression did not come until several years later. Others held that women did not achieve- their greatest beauty until they were forty or older. The verdict of this court of beauty corroborates other evidence that in the appreciation of the public of to-day mature beauty eclipses mere girlish loveliness. It was not always so. Fifteen or twenty years ago the heroines of 10-ve stories w ere eighteen or twenty years old, arguing a. contemporary public view that this was the most interesting time of life in woman. Another evidence of the current appreciation of full grown beauty as against- the mere bud is to be found in the lists of the most lieautiful women that have recently been picked by illustrators, states a- writer in ‘rEverylady’s Journal.” One of these has on her list at least one woman, who is past fifty, three or four in the forties, and several m the thirties. The aveiage age of the twelve of her selection is about 37 years. Flonems Ziegfeld. jun, who looks over 10.000 girls a year to pick 300 for the Follies, selects only those between eighteen and twenty to show to the public, but his personal idea., he said, was that women never became great beauties before twenty-rfive. Emil Fuchs, the artist, argued that the same woman might- be at the maximum of beauty twice —once as a bud of sixteen, ao-aiu as a. woman of personality and expression at thirty. AVe quote the opinions of some of the authorities consulted. Morris Gest, producer and more particularly importer of theatrical exotics: “The most beautiful women arrive at tjheir full beauty between forty and fifty. Intelligence, culture, sympathy. which cannot be fully acquired a-t a.ii earlier age, register themselves on the features, in the bearing, and in the expression. They produce a beauty which cannot be found in you n ger wo niei i . “ L cannot think of young women o( t wen tv or thirty as anything except pretty things. You can say that about a puppy or a eat. or anything at all. But beauty is different. Beauty requires that the life, «oul. and personality shall shin* through the face. A woman beautiful at 40 in this way -will not wilt, but become more and

• In placing the age of greatest beau tv between forty and. fifty, I believe ’that I am voicing the opinion 1 Daniel Frohman. producer : “ AY omen almost never achieve great beauty before thev reach the age of thirty-five. There as something lacking in the good looks of girls or younger women. Experience of life. a larger mental horizon sympathy, tolerance, and consideration combine to give a, charm carriage. Beauty then is heightened and refined. If such a woman has health and an even temperament-, the beauty which she has at thirty-five may Inst for thirty years. Ellen Terry and Alodjesko are splendid examples of women of this type.” Edwin H. Blashfield, president, of the National Academy of Design: “The age of greatest beauty differs o-reatlv in different women. Women who study and work hard and develop intellectually often grow more beautiful with mature years. In my opinion. the greatest beauty is usually attained lie twee u thirty-five and forty, and may continue for many years, I think there is.an increasing tendency to-day to appreciate mature beauty. I have just returned from abroad, and in Paris 1 found that the favourites at the Cornedie Franoaise were women along in years. A century ago Scott was selecting for bis heroines women between fifteen and twenty years. J think our taste has altered very much from that day.” Augustus Lukeman, sculptor: • Women become most beautiful anywhere between those ages twenty-five and thirty-five. Between, those ages the face is lighted up by the intellectual personality. While such beauties arrive between, the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five, they may. with a health intellectual life. grow more beautiful as they grow older, a.s a leal changes from the green into the more, lieautiful autumnal tinges. 'I here is no beauty in young girls, only the promise of beauty, which may or may not bo fulfilled. The figure does not necessarilv lose its beauty in mature or olderlv’ women. “The theory that you can tell a woman’s age by her ankle is ioolish. The high-bred ankle remains as tine in an old woman as in a- young one. A sculptor can tell by the ankle and by the way the arm joins the shoulder whether a woman is bred from thoroughbred stock, but you cannot determine age that way. Tit© most beautiful woman I ever -saw was Mary Anderson, and she grew more -beautiful as long as she lived.” August Gen the. photographer: “In. very voting women you find not real

beauty, but the raw materials, which may or may not develop into beauty. Frivolity is the greatest enemy of beauty. Too many women lead a life of frivolity after they reach the age. of sixteen or seventeen, and never do develop. T have seen girls who studied, worked, and developed mentally for six o»r seven years at this period, and who gained the beauty of personality at the age of twenty-two or twenty-three. But this kind of beauty is rare at so early an age. “ Twenty-five is usually the earliest age when the two types of beauty combine in one woman, and beauty of this kind is likely to last. I have seen women between fifty and sixty so -beautiful that girls of twenty were completely eclipsed in their presence.”