"The idea of beauty," Remy de Gourmont says, "is not an unmixed idea; it is intimately united with the idea of carnal pleasure. Stendhal obscurely perceived this when he defined beauty as 'a promise of happiness.' Beauty is a woman, and women themselves have carried docility to men so far as to accept this aphorism which they can only understand in extreme sexual perversion.... Beauty is so sexual that the only uncontested works of art are those that simply show the human body in its nudity. By its perseverance in remaining purely sexual Greek statuary has placed itself forever above all discussion. It is beautiful because it is a beautiful human body, such a one as every man or every woman would desire to unite with in the perpetuation of the race.... That which inclines to love seems beautiful; that which seems beautiful inclines to love. This intimate union of art and of love is, indeed, the only explanation of art. Without this genital echo art would never have been born and never have been perpetuated. There is nothing useless in these deep human depths; everything which has endured is necessary. Art is the accomplice of love. When love is taken away there is no art; when art is taken away love is nothing but a physiological need." (Remy de Gourmont, Culture des Idées, 1900, p. 103, and Mercure de France, August, 1901, pp. 298 et seq.)
Beauty as incarnated in the feminine body has to some extent become the symbol of love even for women. Colin Scott finds that it is common among women who are not inverted for female beauty whether on the stage or in art to arouse sexual emotion to a greater extent than male beauty, and this is confirmed by some of the histories I have recorded in the Appendix to the third volume of these Studies. Scott considers that female beauty has come to be regarded as typical of ideal beauty, and thus tends to produce an emotional effect on both sexes alike. It is certainly rare to find any æsthetic admiration of men among women, except in the case of women who have had some training in art. In this matter it would seem that woman passively accepts the ideals of man. "Objects which excite a man's desire," Colin Scott remarks, "are often, if not generally, the same as those affecting woman. The female body has a sexually stimulating effect upon both sexes. Statues of female forms are more liable than those of male form to have a stimulating effect upon women as well as men. The evidence of numerous literary expressions seems to show that under the influence of sexual excitement a woman regards her body as made for man's gratification, and that it is this complex emotion which forms the initial stage, at least, of her own pleasure. Her body is the symbol for her partner, and indirectly for her, through his admiration of it, of their mutual joy and satisfaction." (Colin Scott, "Sex and Art," American Journal of Psychology, vol. vii, No. 2, p. 206; also private letter.)
At the same time it must be remembered that beauty and the conception of beauty have developed on a wider basis than that of the sexual impulse only, and also that our conceptions of the beautiful, even as concerns the human form, are to some extent objective, and may thus be in part reduced to law. Stratz, in his books on feminine beauty, and notably in Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers, insists on the objective element in beauty. Papillault, again, when discussing the laws of growth and the beauty of the face, argues that beauty of line in the face is objective, and not a creation of fancy, since it is associated with the highest human functions, moral and social. He remarks on the contrast between the prehistoric man of Chancelade,—delicately made, with elegant face and high forehead,—who created the great Magdalenian civilization, and his seemingly much more powerful, but less beautiful, predecessor, the man of Spy, with enormous muscles and powerful jaws. (Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie, 1899, p. 220.)
The largely objective character of beauty is further indicated by the fact that to a considerable extent beauty is the expression of health. A well and harmoniously developed body, tense muscles, an elastic and finely toned skin, bright eyes, grace and animation of carriage—all these things which are essential to beauty are the conditions of health. It has not been demonstrated that there is any correlation between beauty and longevity, and the proof would not be easy to give, but it is quite probable that such a correlation may exist, and various indications point in this direction. One of the most delightful of Opie's pictures is the portrait of Pleasance Reeve (afterward Lady Smith) at the age of 17. This singularly beautiful and animated brunette lived to the age of 104. Most people are probably acquainted with similar, if less marked, cases of the same tendency.
The extreme sexual importance of beauty, so far, at all events, as conscious experience is concerned is well illustrated by the fact that, although three other senses may and often do play a not inconsiderable part in the constitution of a person's sexual attractiveness,—the tactile element being, indeed, fundamental,—yet in nearly all the most elaborate descriptions of attractive individuals it is the visible elements that are in most cases chiefly emphasized. Whether among the lowest savages or in the highest civilization, the poet and story-teller who seeks to describe an ideally lovely and desirable woman always insists mainly, and often exclusively, on those characters which appeal to the eye. The richly laden word beauty is a synthesis of complex impressions obtained through a single sense, and so simple, comparatively, and vague are the impressions derived from the other senses that none of them can furnish us with any corresponding word.
Before attempting to analyze the conception of beauty, regarded in its sexual appeal to the human mind, it may be well to bring together a few fairly typical descriptions of a beautiful woman as she appears to the men of various nations.
In an Australian folklore story taken down from the lips of a native some sixty years ago by W. Dunlop (but evidently not in the native's exact words) we find this description of an Australian beauty: "A man took as his wife a beautiful girl who had long, glossy hair hanging around her face and down her shoulders, which were plump and round. Her face was adorned with red clay and her person wrapped in a fine large opossum rug fastened by a pin formed from the small bone of the kangaroo's leg, and also by a string attached to a wallet made of rushes neatly plaited of small strips skinned from their outside after they had been for some time exposed to the heat of the fire; which being thrown on her back, the string passing under one arm and across her breast, held the soft rug in a fanciful position of considerable elegance; and she knew well how to show to advantage her queenlike figure when she walked with her polished yam stick held in one of her small hands and her little feet appearing below the edge of the rug" (W. Dunlop, "Australian Folklore Stories," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, August and November, 1898, p. 27).
A Malay description of female beauty is furnished by Skeat. "The brow (of the Malay Helen for whose sake a thousand desperate battles are fought in Malay romances) is like the one-day-old moon; her eyebrows resemble 'pictured clouds,' and are 'arched like the fighting-cock's (artificial) spur'; her cheek resembles the 'sliced-off cheek of a mango'; her nose, 'an opening jasmine bud'; her hair, the 'wavy blossom shoots of the areca-palm'; slender is her neck, 'with a triple row of dimples'; her bosom ripening, her waist 'lissom as the stalk of a flower,' her head; 'of a perfect oval' (literally, bird's-egg shaped), her fingers like the leafy 'spears of lemon-grass' or the 'quills of the porcupine,' her eyes 'like the splendor of the planet Venus,' and her lips 'like the fissure of a pomegranate.'" (W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, 1900, p. 363.)
In Mitford's Tales of Old Japan (vol. i, p. 215) a "peerlessly beautiful girl of 16" is thus described: "She was neither too fat nor too thin, neither too tall nor too short; her face was oval, like a melon-seed, and her complexion fair and white;; her eyes were narrow and bright, her teeth small and even; her nose was aquiline, and her mouth delicately formed, with lovely red lips; her eyebrows were long and fine; she had a profusion of long black hair; she spoke modestly, with a soft, sweet voice, and when she smiled, two lovely dimples appeared in her cheeks; in all her movements she was gentle and refined." The Japanese belle of ancient times, Dr. Nagayo Sensai remarks (Lancet, February 15, 1890) had a white face, a long, slender throat and neck, a narrow chest, small thighs, and small feet and hands. Bälz, also, has emphasized the ethereal character of the Japanese ideal of feminine beauty, delicate, pale and slender, almost uncanny; and Stratz, in his interesting book, Die Körperformen in Kunst und Leben der Japaner (second edition, 1904), has dealt fully with the subject of Japanese beauty.
The Singalese are great connoisseurs of beauty, and a Kandyan deeply learned in the matter gave Dr. Davy the following enumeration of a woman's points of beauty: "Her hair should be voluminous, like the tail of the peacock, long, reaching to her knees, and terminating in graceful curls; her eyebrows should resemble the rainbow, her eyes, the blue sapphire and the petals of the blue manilla-flower. Her nose should be like the bill of the hawk; her lips should be bright and red, like coral or the young leaf of the iron-tree. Her teeth should be small, regular, and closely set, and like jessamine buds. Her neck should be large and round, resembling the berrigodea. Her chest should be capacious; her breasts, firm and conical, like the yellow cocoa-nut, and her waist small—almost small enough to be clasped by the hand. Her hips should be wide; her limbs tapering; the soles of her feet, without any hollow, and the surface of her body in general soft, delicate, smooth, and rounded, without the asperities of projecting bones and sinews." (J. Davy, An Account of the Interior of Ceylon, 1821, p. 110.)