Identifier: examplesofhouseh00smit (find matches)
Title: Examples of household taste
Year: 1875 (1870s)
Authors: Smith, Walter, 1836-1886 Smith, Walter, 1836-1886. Industrial art of the International Exhibition
Subjects: Centennial Exhibition (1876 : Philadelphia, Pa.) Decorative arts
Publisher: New York, R. Worthington
Contributing Library: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library

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Furniture Silk : French Collective Exhibit. at our manner of dressing. It does not require a Chinese standpoint o^ viewto see that much of it is monstrous—not die mens fashions (they are wellenough), but those of the women. Do not they torture their feet and contracttheir waists and place protuberances on their persons and erect constructionson their heads—in short, deform their natural shapes? The female form is ourtype of beauty, and the Greek idealists are recognized as having o-iven ft mostperfect expression in their statues. One—a man at least—would think, there-fore, that women would endeavor modestly to clothe themselves so as to preserve 268 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITI0N, 18y6.
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Lace : Collective Exhibit of Brussels. if not to betray the sym-metry of a perfect figure.If not well formed by na-ture, it is reasonable andperhaps justifiable thatthey should resort to art;but to go beyond this, tomar their own beauty,—that women should dothis would be inconceiv-able, if we had not theevidence always beforeus. Few women pauseto consider how thesechanges of fashion fromthe simple robe girdledat the waist have beenbrought about; why oneportion of the figure isexaggerated and anothercontracted. We thinkperhaps it would be betterif they did; for certainlyno intelligent woman cando this without discover-ing that sensuality is agoverning motive. On page 267 we illus-trate two different pat-terns of Furniture Silkfrom the Collective Ex-hibit in the French Court. They prove that, notwithstanding the advice of would-be reformers of taste,the public continue to demand the very designs in textile fabrics which they

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