In dress, considered as an ornamental art, and, as practised by the sex which chiefly studies it, the chief beauty depends on the adoption of winding forms in drapery, and of wreaths of flowers for the head, &c. These are essential to the variety and contrast, as well as to the gayety which that sex desires.
“Uniformity,” says Hogarth, “is chiefly complied with in dress, on account of fitness, and seems to be extended not much farther than dressing both arms alike, and having the shoes of the same color. For when any part of dress has not the excuse of fitness or propriety for its uniformity of parts, the ladies always call it formal.”
These irregular, varying, and somewhat complicated draperies excite that active curiosity, and those movements of imagination, to which skilful women never neglect to address themselves in modern costume.
It is with the same feeling and intention, whether these be defined or not, that, in the head-dress, they seek for bending lines and circumvolutions, and that they combine variously the waves and the tresses of the hair.
For the same reason, a feather or a flower is never placed precisely over the middle of the forehead; and if two are employed, great care is taken that their positions are dissimilar.
It has sometimes struck me as remarkable, that precious stones are almost always arranged differently from flowers. While the latter are placed irregularly, and in waving lines, not only on the head, but the bosom, and the skirt of the dress, the former are in general regularly placed, either on the median line of the person, as the middle of the forehead and, in Eastern countries, of the nose, or symmetrically in similar pendants from each ear, and bracelets on the arms and wrists.
The instinctive feeling which gives origin to this is, that flowers adorn the system of life and reproduction, and by their color and smell, associate with its emotions, which they also express and communicate to others—they, therefore, assume the varied forms of that system; whereas, diamonds, attached generally to mental organs, or organs of sense, are significant of mental feelings, love of splendor, distinction, pride, &c.—they, therefore, assume the symmetrical form of these organs. Hence, too, flowers are recommended to the young; diamonds are permitted only to the old.
Beauty of Intellectual Objects.
I have already said, that the intellectual arts are, in their highest efforts, characterized chiefly by animal forms, as in gesture, sculpture, and painting, or by animal functions actually exercised, in oratory, poetry, and music.
In the useful arts, the purpose is utility; in the ornamental arts, it is bodily or sensual pleasure; and in the intellectual arts, it is the pleasure of imagination.