Beauty Standards (Continued)

Women in the early 1900s not only strove to be outwardly beautiful, but also inwardly. Many contemporaries believed the two to be intimately connected: that outward beauty showed inward health and purity.[9] They thought that a “vital interest in humanity”[10] made the eyes more beautiful, self-absorption deadened them, and a “joyous frame of mind”[11] expanded the pupils and brightened the eyes’ color. [12] Women sought to avoid “morbid excitement,”[13] as it created “morbid conditions.”[14] Women were to achieve this “serenity of mind” by “shutting out all opportunity for hasty temper, or [for] morbid, ignoble thoughts.”[15] In this way, they could be truly beautiful. All of these beliefs show that women did not only want to be beautiful for beauty’s sake alone, but also for the sake of their overall wellbeing. In society’s eyes, a beautiful woman was a healthy, happy one. Unconscious Beauty demonstrates this idea of inward—as well as outward—purity. With her pale skin, demure smile, and calm expression, the woman in Unconscious Beauty exemplifies both.

[9] Fletcher, The Woman Beautiful, 134.

[10] Ibid., 381.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., 134.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Fletcher, The Woman Beautiful, 134.

[15] Ibid.