“I have a soapbox,” I announced to the third grade class yesterday
afternoon. “It’s not really about art
history, but I think it’s important. Let
me talk about this for a minute and then we’ll discuss Neoclassical and
Romantic art.”
I went on to explain that the day before, as I was choosing
which pictures to show the class, I’d looked at several by a Neoclassic painter
named Ingres. As I looked at his
portraits and his female nudes, I thought to myself, women aren’t shaped like that.
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| Mademoiselle Caroline Riviere by Jean August Dominique Ingres, 1806 Source: Wikimedia Commons |
“Look at this picture,” I continued, holding up Mademoiselle Caroline Riviere. Several kids noticed immediately that
something was off. “The woman’s neck is
too long and too thin, and the nose is longer than a real woman’s nose. The artist painted the woman in a way to make
the whole painting pretty. He wasn’t trying to paint her like she really
looked. But let’s pretend for a minute that your
teacher, Miss P., is a third grader in the 1800’s, and let’s pretend that she doesn’t
know that this isn’t how the woman really looked. Miss P.
just thinks the picture is very beautiful. Miss P. wants to look just like the woman in
the picture, so she can be beautiful too.
But she can’t, because her neck and nose aren’t long enough. How do you think Miss P. is going to feel
about herself after a while?
“There are lots of pictures in magazines and catalogues
today that are like this painting: The
person in the picture isn’t real. The
person who made the magazine picture changed the way the person looked so that
the whole picture looks pretty. The
problem is if somebody today thinks the person in the picture is real, and if
they can’t look like the fake person in the picture, they feel bad about
themselves. But Miss P. is beautiful
just because she’s Miss P., and all you girls are beautiful just because you’re
you, and all you boys are handsome just because you’re you.”
I debated bringing this up in third grade because I
volunteer to teach art history, not ethics.
And I debated putting this up on my blog because it doesn’t really fit
the theme of history of Christianity. I
decided to, anyway, both times, because I can’t stop thinking about how I felt
as I looked at those ill-proportioned pictures of women. I’m not particularly bothered that Ingress painted
women with an eye to the overall composition of the painting instead of an eye
to what women really looked like. Instead, I’m concerned because
I’ve just realized that women have been “photoshopped” for a long time--much
longer than I’d considered.
I have five kids, ages 14 to 5. I’ve dealt with body image concerns from my
daughters and my sons. Yes, I think it’s ok to be in a ballet class
even though you don’t think you’re shaped like what you think a ballerina is
shaped like. No, I don’t think it’s a
problem that you’re little sister is as tall as you, though I understand why you’re
angry when people think you’re twins.
No, I don’t think anyone notices that your eyes aren’t quite
symmetrical, and I think that even if they did notice, it’s not important. After
looking at Ingres’ pictures, I understand better why my kids (and many adults)
have such a hard time getting this. We
look at pictures that portray beauty in unrealistic ways. And we’ve been doing it for over two hundred
years, not just since the invention of photography and digitally altering
images.
My kids, and all the kids in third grade, need something
better than they get from Ingres. They
need to know that they’re children of God, and this alone makes them
beautiful. So yesterday I took time out
of art history to teach this message to third graders as best as I could. Next week I’ll present a similar lesson in
family home evening. I decided to post
my soapbox on my blog, too, as some people who read my blog aren’t in my family
or Miss P.’s third grade class.
We are children of God, and that is enough to make us
beautiful.
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