What pains we take to distort and disfigure the beautiful form that nature has bestowed upon the human race! Now building a tower on the head, then raising the heel at the expense of the toe; at one time confining the body in a case of whalebone, and compressing it at the waist like an hour glass; at another, surrounding it with the enormous and ungraceful hoop, till the outline of the figure is so altered, that a person can scarcely recognize her own shadow as that of a human being.
[CHAPTER VI.]
REMARKS ON PARTICULAR COSTUMES.
We must now offer a few brief remarks upon certain costumes which appear to us most worthy of our attention and study, for their general elegance and adaptation to the figure.
Of the modern Greek we have already spoken. The style of dress which has been immortalized by the pencil of Vandyck is considered among the most elegant that has ever prevailed in this country. It is not, however, faultless. The row of small curls around the face, however becoming to some persons, is somewhat formal; and although the general arrangement of the hair, which preserves the natural size and shape of the head, is more graceful than that of the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds, we think it would have been more pleasing had it left visible the line which divides the hair from the forehead. With regard to the dress itself, it is apparent, in the first place, that the figures are spoiled by stays; secondly, that the dress is cut too low in front; and thirdly, that the large sleeves sometimes give too great width in front to the shoulders. These defects are, in some degree, counterbalanced by the graceful flow of the ample drapery, and of the large sleeves, which are frequently widest at their lower part, and by the gently undulating line which unites the waist of the dress with the skirt. The Vandyck dress, with its voluminous folds, is, however, more appropriate to the inhabitants of palaces, than to the ordinary occupants of this working-day world. The drapery is too wide and flowing for convenience. The annexed cut, ([Fig. 73],) representing Charlotte de la Tremouille, the celebrated Countess of Derby, exhibits some of the defects and many of the beauties of the Vandyck dress.
Lely's half-dressed figures may be passed over without comment; they are draped, not dressed. Kneller's are more instructive on the subject of costume. The dress of Queen Anne, ([Fig. 74],) in Kneller's portrait, is graceful and easy. The costume is a kind of transition between the Vandyck and Reynolds style. The sleeves are smaller at the shoulder than in the former, and larger at the lower part than in the latter; in fact, they resemble those now worn by the modern Greeks. The dress is cut higher round the bust, and is longer in the waist than the Vandycks, while the undulating line uniting the body and skirt is still preserved. While such good examples were set by the painters—who were not, however, the inventors of the fashions they painted—it is astonishing that these graceful styles of dress should have been superseded in real life by the lofty head-dresses and preposterous fashions which prevailed during the same period and long afterwards, and which even the ironical and severe remarks of Addison, in the “Spectator,” were unable to banish from the circles of fashion.
Speaking of the dresses of ladies during the reigns of James II. and William III., Mr. Planché, in his “History of British Costumes,” says, “The tower or commode was still worn, and the gowns and petticoats flounced and furbelowed, so that every part of the garment was in curl;” and a lady of fashion “looked like one of those animals,” says the “Spectator,” “which in the country we call a Friesland hen.” But in 1711 we find Mr. Addison remarking, “The whole sex is now dwarfed and shrunk into a race of beauties that seems almost another species. I remember several ladies who were once nearly seven foot high, that at present want some inches of five. How they come to be thus curtailed I cannot learn; whether the whole sex be at present under any penance which we know nothing of, or whether they have cast their head-dresses in order to surprise us with something in that kind which shall be entirely new: though I find most are of opinion they are at present like trees lopped and pruned, that will certainly sprout up and flourish with greater heads than before.”
The costume of the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as treated by this great artist, though less splendid, appears to us, with the exception of the head-dress, nearly as graceful, and far more convenient than the Vandyck dress. It is more modest, more easy, and better adapted to show the true form of the shoulders, while the union of the body of the dress with the skirt is effected in the same graceful manner as in the Vandyck portraits. The materials of the drapery in the latter [are] generally silks and satins; of the former, it is frequently muslin and stuff of a soft texture, which clings more closely to the form. That much of the elegance of both styles of dress is to be attributed to the skill and good taste of the painters, is evident from an examination of portraits by contemporary artists. Much also may be ascribed to the taste of the wearer.
There are some people who, though habited in the best and richest clothes, never appear well dressed; their garments, rumpled and untidy, look as if they had been pitched on them, like hay, with a fork; while others, whose dress consists of the most homely materials, appear well dressed, from the neatness and taste with which their clothes are arranged.
