WHAT IS THE PERFECT FIGURE

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXXVI, Issue 5516, 24 October 1919, Page 3 (Supplement)

WHAT IS THE PERFECT FIGURE

The announcement of a London newspaper’s offer of an 18-carat gold and jewelled high-heeled slipper to the actress with the smallest foot has caused many a woman ruefully to survey her extremely useful, pracical, and withal shapely feet which are encased in shoes 5,6, or e%eu 7! And yet these sizes are those which he average woman of to-da> wears. There is no doubt that since Sir James Paget, the celebrated physician, flung his bombshell of ration al upbringing for girls and did his best to abolish the early "Victorian ideas of "back-boards,” “head-rests, and general coddling, girls have do veloped physically in an almost un believable way. In fact, artists, phj sicians, dress-makers, shoe-makers, and glove-makers are agreed that the girl of to-day is taller and bigger than her fore-runner of yesterday. Yet, after all, beauty is not limited by size; it is only ruled by proportion. And the rules of proportion are these; A woman should be seven heads high, and seven heads from tip to tip of her extended arms. Her hand should be the 1 ugth of her face, or slightly smaller, and her foot should measure the distance from her chin to the farthest point from it at the back of her head, or a little less. Mr. G. E. Wade, the well-known sculptor, who has immortalised in marble many a beautiful woman, is able to speak with authority on beauty and proportion. “There are no rules of beauty,” he said to a visitor to his studio; “what composes it is merely a question of taste and appropriateness. An artist conceives an ideal and then creates it, and the great public for whom he works approves or disapproves according to its individual ideas. Many artists go beyond Nature in order adequately to express themselves, but provided that they do not lose their sense of proportion in so doing it is extraordinary how natural the result can be. It has been said that an artist should first study anatomy in order to be able to ignore it—and that is the basis of much in the art of the reproduction of beauty. “Do you agree that the Venus of Milo is the perfect woman?” the visitor interrupted. Mr.. Wade crossed the studio and gazed earnestly upon her- Then: “Look at her feet,” he replied, “and compare them with her height, reduce her to scale —well, perfect or not perfect, she certainly would not have a chance of winning the prize Golden Slipper.”