Dead people's facial features

[Barz51]

I've seen book of pictures of children who had passed away before, most were posed like they were sleeping. A peaceful reminder of those who had passed on, for many this was the only tangible memory of their lost children.

However the picture shot through the open window is weird! That kids eyes are open! Who would want that? It is just down right creepy! In the pic with the nuns it is hard to tell which one is dead!

 

[cherry lips]

My hair's not wavy and crimpy like hers (which incidentally became popular right about the mid-1860s), but it's fluffy/wavy/bushy if I let it.

You probably already know this, but achieving crimpy, wavy hair is very easy. All you do is sleeps with braids!

 

[Sunny]

You probably already know this, but achieving crimpy, wavy hair is very easy. All you do is sleeps with braids!

True! I forgot about that! lol

 

[Mojito]

I would like to point out that the Victorian Era, properly speaking, lasted for many decades, from 1837-1901. That's a lot of time and a lot of fashion under the bridge. There is no such thing as a single all-encompassing Victorian fashion or beauty ideal. I love early- to mid-Victorian fashion the best, so I've studied the years 1860-1865 the most as well as the late 1850s, with a fair amount of knowledge from the early 1850s and 1840s. Physically, the fashion ideal of that period, which the clothing was designed to give the effect, included small waists (hence the big skirts and big sleeves), sloping shoulders (hence the "dropped" armholes), round faces (hence hairstyles flat on top and wide at the sides and rouge applied to give plump cheeks), and small feet. Cosmetics had had widespread use for decades, by the way. Powders and rouge (Don't take GWTW for gospel!) were all over, both bought and homemade, and I've seen recipes for making things to darken lashes and/or brows. The differences between American and European fashion weren't that significant, at least through the 1860s, except for certain "high fashion" elements that just never quite caught on. There was very little time lag, too; between steamships on the ocean and railroads in the country, even rural areas were very well-connected. There were differences between French and English, but I wouldn't say it was because of "Victorian morals"; they'd always been different, at least as far as I can tell. Different cultures, that's all. Fashion definitely came from the French, but the English and the Americans simply didn't adopt everything right away, or to the same extent. I've been learning recently about some variations that were in Germany in the same period, too. (Can you tell I love this subject?)

Mojito has the "conventional prettiness" nailed - high, wide forehead and large eyes are the most important. I'd say that's typical of the 1850s, though - I wouldn't put it later than that. In that respect, Rossetti was not painting women who fit the, by then, slightly old-fashioned ideal. Nor, however, was he in just in step with the new fashion. The early 1860s in France, and 1864-5 in the U.S., began an enormous fashion shift, comparable in scope and significance to the New Look. Big skirts began to change shape, becoming elliptical and long in back; this trend eventually morphed into two distinct bustle periods. Bodices became tighter, with smaller sleeves; armholes moved back up on the shoulder. Everything began to emphasize height, from hats to hairstyles to collars, &c.

Rossetti's ladies, with their flowing crimped hair, in a way fit about 1863 onward fairly well; there was a "fad" for crimped hair that became so popular it hung on for a long time. Like the ringlets look, a fad in the 1840s, hung on for decades among women and girls with curly hair. But I think Rossetti just found an ideal that he liked, and he painted it.

(That Rossetti Archive is a fantastic site, ShrinkingViolet. I love how much detail he put in on the sketches. It's great for getting hairstyle details that are rarely seen in photographs or formal portraits. )

Beautiful post, Sunny! I committed the cardinal sin of being too broad in my comments - the Victorian era, spanning as it did such a lengthy period, did not have a static dominant popular aesthetic in the arts (or in fashion), as you point out. Rossetti "discovered" Janey in 1857, so although most of the paintings we're discussing date to later, my remarks about him identifying and exulting her slightly unusual beauty and that of Elizabeth Siddal (who entered the circle in 1849) relate mainly to that period. It could be argued that Jane Morris' looks and personal style - her slightly medievalised dress - became a bohemian ideal in later decades, fitting in well with the aesthetic that her husband William Morris had helped bring about. Still not really mainstream, but certainly with its own cultural niche and was not alien to broader trends - although her dark, thick brows under the heavy, somewhat frizzy hair still drew comment. She seemed a rather archaic figure - and was deliberately so.

Lizzie is an interesting character. Tradition has ascribed her the role of supreme Pre-Raphaelite beauty, but this belief has been challenged by an historian of the movement, Jan Marsh. She suggests the idea only became established after Rossetti began to exult Lizzie in his work, and that there was a "prettifying" of her features in the early works of other painters - for example, that in Holman Hunt's 1851 painting on the subject of Sylvia, Valentine and Proteus. Originally criticised for Sylvia's features, Hunt had to touch them up. Marsh believes that Lizzie's intial value was as a model - her willingness to pose and her ability to hold a pose, her professional status (as a milliner or dress maker) allowing her to attend their studios unchaperoned making her valuable. It was only after Rossetti fell in love - which does not seem to have happened immediately - that she began to be seen in terms of exquisite beauty. I don't know if I entirely agree with this argument - Deverell, the artist who discovered her, is *reported* to have gone into rhapsodies to his friends about her beauty when he (alledgedly) found her working as a milliner's assistant. Marsh traces the stories of how Deverell found her back to their sources and finds a lack of contemporary documentations - variations on the yarn date to many years after it happened, when mythmaking had begun. But something drew Deverell to her - even if it was simply her rich, coppery hair. In the two extant photographs identified as her she seems reasonably attractive, although the lack of quality in the images (and the "artistic" way she is posed) make it difficult to get a clear look, and of course not all beauty of charm and manner - subjective as they are - could be captured by early photographic techniques.

And while on photographs - you look amazing in the photos, Sunny - in the parlance of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a real "stunner". Had he seen you walking down the street, Rossetti might have demonstrated social impropriety and pursued you hoping for an introduction so he could paint you, as he did with other beauties like Alexa Wilding!

On the hair - it's thought the ritual of plaiting before bedtime was the inspiration for this lovely painting of Fanny Cornforth as "Fazio's Mistress":

 

[Sunny]

That's fascinating, Mojito! Oh, and I wasn't trying to show you up or anything. It's clear you really know your stuff! I love all that detail. This is something I've never studied.

And while on photographs - you look amazing in the photos, Sunny - in the parlance of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a real "stunner". Had he seen you walking down the street, Rossetti might have demonstrated social impropriety and pursued you hoping for an introduction so he could paint you, as he did with other beauties like Alexa Wilding!

Aww! My goodness, I'm blushing!

This is all encouraging me to let my hairs keep growing...

 

[Mojito]

Oh no, Sunny - I didn't take it that way! I'm no expert on either the Pre-Raphaelites, Victorian art, or Victorian society - I just have a little interest in the subject, and don't mind being corrected. And I *love* learning more, so found your post brilliant.

There's a studio photo of Janey in a hooded cape taken in a studio c.1860 that reminds me of the second photo of you posted in this thread, but I can't find it online. You also fit into one of the "types" he favoured - Mrs Beyer, one of his other models, also has features not unlike yours.

 

[Vintage Betty]

The Victorian post mortem photos: I learned from their existence here at the forum the first time - a very strange cult of remembering the dead.
For me they were grotesque and unimaginable I must admit.
But not less strange than in my great-grandmothers time on the countryside the dead being mourned at home by professional mourning women, etc...my dad told me he has witnessed this habit even in the 1960's.
The dead childrens photos are especially sad - why the staged family idyll around them? The sole photos of the deceased is more understandable in an age where there were not much photographs taken - but to surround them with their live companions...???
<snipped>

I actually gave a talk about Queen Victoria & Victorian Mourning a number of years ago. What might seem "creepy" or "disturbing" today had other social connotations during that time period.

To simplify some of the cultural idioms of the period: Many people could not afford to have paintings done of their children, and a photograph was a last attempt to capture their a memory of their children at an affordable cost.

There is a long and protracted set of other beliefs I can go into about the Victorian culture and other cultures which support and contradict the practice of photographing the dead, but perhaps we should start a new thread for that.

Vintage Betty