“In modern Japanese picture books, the lips of girls may sometimes be seen to be represented thus green. I suppose the idea is that such application of paint shows a meritorious disregard for expense. It is curious that the use of aniline colour should have so rapidly spread in China and Japan. In China, at least, such was not to be expected; but it seems to have supplanted the old rouge, and it is sold spread on folding cards, with Chinese characters on them, at Canton and in Japan. This form of painting the face seems to be exactly of the same nature as savage painting.”
The likeness of this painting to that of our clowns is of course quite obvious.
Sometimes the painting of the body has a practical advantage. The Andaman Islanders plaster themselves with a mixture of lard and coloured earth, which protects their skin from the heat and mosquitoes; but, as Dr. Tylor points out, they go off into love of display when they proceed to draw lines on the paint with their fingers, or when a dandy will colour one side of his face red and the other olive-green, and make an ornamental border-line where the two colours meet down his chest and abdomen.
Fashions in paint were quite as slavishly followed as any other, and, as we see, have died hard. It is not a very far cry from painting to tattooing. Of savages, Théophile Gautier has said that, having no clothes to embroider, they embroider themselves. Scar tattooing is connected with various rites such as are followed when a brave arrives at manhood, and certainly tattooing serves to indicate the family or tribe to which the ornamented person belongs. There is no doubt, however, that the intention of much tattooing is to increase individual beauty. Excellent examples of this are to be found in the case of the Maoris, whose faces were most elaborately covered with designs. We are kindly permitted to reproduce some of the drawings which General Robley has made from specimens in his magnificent collection (see Plate [X], Figure [D]). The practice now, however, is dying out. Of the Formosans it is said that their skins are covered with flower patterns until they look like damask.
Tattooing was practised by the old inhabitants of this country, by the Jews and the earliest Egyptians: it is still carried on in modern Egypt, chiefly on the chin, on the back of the hands, the arms and feet, the middle of the bosom, and the forehead. It survives principally in the case of the women of the lower classes and in the country. Among European sailors and among the lower classes, and even occasionally those up in high social scale, we find tattooing carried on, though the original idea of ornamentation is lost when the decoration is covered by clothing.
We have seen occasionally at shows—such as that organized by Barnum—white people who have been tattooed to a very great extent, and even in the case of Europeans the patterns tend to take off the bare look even of the white skin. No doubt the desire to make permanent such ornamentation as that obtained by painting, led to the introduction of tattooing, and just as some marks suggest that they are copied from amulets, so some amulets show traces of having been derived from tattoo patterns. Mr. Lovett has pointed out to us that possibly the floral designs worked on the backs of the bodices of the women of Marken, in Holland, may have originated from tattooing, but no doubt careful research would show some other and undoubted instances.
The painting of the face, which is intended to heighten its beauty and hide the ravages of time, is quite another matter. It survives to the present day, but luckily it is much less common in this country than it was a few years ago. It does not, however, seem to have been at all in vogue in England until the Middle Ages, though cosmetics and false complexions were made use of by ladies in Roman times.
Fairholt[42] quotes from an old French poem of the thirteenth century which describes the wares of a mercer who declares, “I have cotton with which they rouge, and whitening with which they whiten themselves.” The cotton took the place of the hare’s foot that is now used in making up, to rub colour on the cheeks.
At this point we might consider patches, the use of which made it possible to ornament the skin with patterns that could be removed at will. These patches came into fashion in Charles I’s reign, but were banned by the Puritans. As soon, however, as Charles II came into his own again, they made their appearance once more, and took various fantastic shapes: owls, rings, crescents, and crowns; a coach and horses was particularly fashionable, and in the time of Queen Anne it was possible to tell the political views of fashionable ladies by their faces and their fans. Party feeling ran very high at this time, and those who were neutral wore patches on both cheeks, a Whig lady on the right side only, while a High Church Tory dame only adorned the left, and she wore suspended from her wrist a fan on which was depicted a scene from the trial of Dr. Sacheverell at Westminster Hall.
Red and white paint was at the same time universally employed by women of fashion, who, as Miss Helen Gordon[43] says, had perforce to keep their lovers at a respectful distance, lest a kiss “snatched by a forward one might transfer the complexion of the mistress to the admirer.” The untimely decease of more than one famous beauty was attributed to the paint with which she besmeared her countenance, a notable instance being the death of Lady Coventry, whose husband had been wont to chase her round the dinner-table in his determined efforts to remove the deleterious compound from her face with his serviette. According to Walpole, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu used the cheapest white paint obtainable, and left it so long on her skin that it had literally to be scraped off. It may be inferred that these fine ladies rarely washed; but “the age was careless in that respect, personal cleanliness at a discount, and the essence pot consequently in great demand.”