How did people decide what was beautiful (male/female) in the past?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Just that, really. I know about medieval standards of beauty a bit, and I know they had a huge thing for blonde women, liked their men bearded, and so on. But I don't know much about the last 500 years or about whether it's different in different bits of Europe. Obviously I guess it must be once you get outside Europe!

But how did people judge what was attractive in a man or a woman?

I know that people must have varied as much as we do but there must also be things we'd think were completely odd to find sexy, but that were attractive back in the day. I know in about 1375 Chaucer has the Wife of Bath say she's attractive because she has a gap in her teeth.

I also wonder how much people genuinely looked very different in the past and now. Of course we are healthier on the whole and I understand we're a bit bigger than women used to be, but I wonder what else has changed.

This is an interesting topic. Mary Tudor, Henry VIII's sister, the one who ran off with Charles Brandon, was sometimes described by contemporary sources as the most beautiful princess in Europe. I think even by today's standards she would be considered attractive, if her portraits are any indication.

Mary Tudor

She shares Henry's nose.

i thought blue eyes were a rogue gene - so literally a freak of nature.

Mary Tudor does look attractive by 'modern standards'. I think Charles II was a babe...

Depends which pic you look at - she's lovely in the portrait with Brandon, I agree. Less so in this one.

She is very pretty in that portrait. She doesn't look anything like Henry, though. Interesting.

Mmm. She's not awful in that pic, tunip - she does look oddly as if she blinked at the wrong moment, though!

It would help if she was smiling, too!

Her hair is redder, though, in the second one.

True.

IIRC, people thought it was really animalistic and awful to show your teeth when you were smiling. Which I suppose is quite practical too, since loads of them must've had rotten/missing ones. Lovely.

It's very confusing with hair colour and pictures on screens. I'm writing about someone who there is a sketch of in the Royal Collection and in various renderings of the exact same picture her hair can look golden, ginger or chestnut.

Completely off topic (sorry):

I have just been Googling the Ingalls sister. Apparently diabetes ran in the family and Grace, Carrie and Laura all died of complications arising from it. The other interesting thing (to me anyway) is in an age when women had far more children than nowadays, was that despite marrying neither Grace nor Carrie had any children of their own, and Laura only had one daughter (though her son died soon after birth). I wonder if there was any reason for this, and whether it had anything to do with the diabetes? They say that sugar spikes and insulin resistance can cause problems conceiving.

Must have been awfully sad for Laura being the last sister left and then being widowed too :(

Yeah, that's tricky! I know sometimes the state of the varnish makes a big difference, too - it darkens up over time.

Anyway.....

I also have to admit to a bit of a historical crush on Charles II. I think that he may not have been considered handsome at the time partly because of his swarthy complexion. But he was tall, at least 6'2'' and clean (he swam every day), although the cleanliness may not have mattered all that much in the 17th century. His portraits do all seem to have a remarkable similarity; you can see the man in the child very readily.

hester - YY, I find that sad too. Their mother had a baby boy who died, as well, and I think Laura did too? Hazy memories.

I can't imagine being bound up in a corset was especially good for pregnancies, either - because presumably you wore it early on because you wouldn't know?

I think Byron blamed his mother for his club foot because she tight-laced through her pregnancy.

My historical crush would be Edward IV. He was 6'4 and apparently very muscly. Lovely.

Cleanness did matter, and people put a lot of store on having fresh linen regularly.

My historical crush would be Willem Sluwe
(William I of Orange)

LRD, and her daughter Rose had a baby boy who died in infancy and never conceived again.

Edward IV did sound delish in his youth, but I would be put off by his extreme gluttony! Filling his stomach to capacity, then purging it, just so he could have the pleasure of eating all over again. Yeurgh! No wonder he snuffed it at 40.

Mine would be John off Gaunt I reckon.

He looks filthy In a good way.

Wasn't William of Orange a bit of a cunt? Good looking though...

I didn't know Rose had a baby!

LRD my first thought upon seeing those sleeves was the Marilla was right after all!

I have always wondered if there was a link between the three boy children dying in the Ingalls family.

I have always been interested in the rise and fall in fashion of the female bust, being heavily endowed in that department myself. I would have been hopeless in the 20's but in the nineteenth century would have been fairly fashionable.

Yeah. That would be the downside, hester.

William of Orange looks a bit of alright. Would not have guessed short hair was in fashion then (I am really hazy about that historical period in general).