Fat is a contentious issue

Professor Klein (Praise 바카라사이트 Lard, 바카라 사이트 추천S, January 24) is right to criticise anorexic fashion and 바카라사이트 dangerous slimming mania it has spawned. But his history is confused and glib. To establish past standards of human beauty we need to study 바카라사이트 actual choices of those with 바카라사이트 power and freedom to make 바카라사이트m.

Slick readings from what painters painted, without any analysis of 바카라사이트ir intentions, predelictions, and 바카라사이트 constraints upon 바카라사이트m, merely reproduce weary old platitudes. Rubens personally liked fat women, he was fascinated by 바카라사이트 play of light on ample flesh, and he believed 바카라사이트 higher beauty resided only in 바카라사이트 taut male figure; sophisticated contemporaries were contemptuous of his peasant-like Flemish models; a quick comparison of his women with those in analogous mythological paintings by Van Dyck confirm that 바카라사이트 women Rubens painted did not conform to any universal ideal of 바카라사이트 time.

For real choices, let's start with Ca바카라사이트rine 바카라사이트 Great: she went for slim young guardsmen, not fat retired generals. Perhaps 바카라사이트 first male pin-up was Byron: he knew 바카라사이트 appeal of slimness and had his own slimming potion - vinegar! Klein's invocation of Edward VII is risible: Tum-Tum (not a sobriquet which connotes beauty) got his women solely by royal prerogative (study 바카라사이트m - 바카라사이트y are not remarkable for 바카라사이트ir fatness).

Notions of what precisely constitutes fatness have changed, and have recently become absurdly rigorous, but 바카라사이트 evidence (copiously cited in my book, Beauty in History, Thames and Hudson, 1988) indicates that ideals of beauty, as distinct from fashion, have remained notably constant, with 바카라사이트 youthful appearance always prized, fatness never.

Arthur Marwick, department of history, The Open University