In which I make a modest proposal

In her eminent blog, Reading the Past, Sarah Johnson posted a link to this video: http://miraulam.multiply.com/video/item/38 I can't stop watching it. It is a compilation of portraits of women over the centuries, and it is utterly enchanting. From Leonardo to Vigee-LeBrun, Winterhalter to Botticelli, the video covers six hundred years of gorgeous femininity. I am fascinated by the changing standards of beauty. Rubens' luscious curves rub dimpled elbows with Goya's dark-eyed temptresses. Some subjects seem to hold the viewer at arms' length, disdaining the notion of stepping off her pretty pedestal, while others beckon you so close you can almost catch the scent of her perfume.

Watching this parade of beautiful women reminded me of a girl I knew many years ago. She told me once that she couldn't stand to watch beauty pageants because she hated seeing so many girls prettier than she was. I was speechless, something that happens very rarely. This girl had beautiful green eyes and a lovely, curvy figure with the tiniest waist you can imagine. She was a Gibson girl in the flesh, all pale skin and dark blond hair. But she couldn't appreciate her own attractions because she was so busy looking at other women as a standard against which to measure herself. She would hate this video, I'm sure, and I think that's terribly sad. We're cruel to ourselves, women are. We don't spend nearly enough time appreciating our own gorgeousness, and everyone has something gorgeous to celebrate. Whether it's a pair of perfectly-pedicured feet with outrageous red toenail polish or a warm, beautiful smile, flawless creamy skin or killer cleavage, whatever you have, should be cherished and used. I know so many women who waste so much time thinking about what's wrong with them, they never see what's right!

And it isn't just us regular girls on the street. Elizabeth Taylor once admitted that she thought Audrey Hepburn was beautiful, but that she herself was nothing special. Elizabeth Taylor, a woman so beautiful she could probably have made the earth stop on its axis if she had thought to try. Madness. And what about the subjects in the paintings on the video? Winterhalter painted famous European beauties, and yet Empress Elizabeth, perhaps the most breathtaking woman in the world in the 19th century, was desperately worried about how she would be depicted by him. She needn't have been. She is glorious. All of the women in that video are, and that makes me wonder--did they appreciate the artists' handiwork? Did they nitpick that Klimt didn't get their hair quite right? Or did they smile knowingly at Ingres and give him a lingering kiss on the cheek to thank him for the speechless eloquence of his work?

I prefer to think the latter. I like to believe that all it would take is seeing how much beauty someone else sees in us to snap us out of our ridiculous self-loathing. Perhaps that's the cure for the epidemic of low female self-esteem in this country; we should all be painted. (Actually, that has always been one of my secret ambitions. I have been sketched and sculpted, but never professionally, and while I adore my photographer, I do agree with the character of Anne Tyler's who said photographs lie because they show only a second and life is about hours. I wonder what secrets a painter tickles out during the long hours of mixing colors and adjusting draperies? I'm convinced they all make it onto the canvas if you know how to look for them.)

So that's my proposal. Let's all be painted, and if we can't be, then let's at least watch the video and celebrate how good nature has been to us, all of us. For women, it's a chance for us to remember why for fifty centuries we were worshiped. For men, it might just be something pretty to play before you head off to check the college football scores on espn.com. Either way, it is a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a few minutes celebrating the beautiful.