An Interview with the Hon. John Collier. By Rudolph De Cordova

As not only one of the most distinguished of living artists and portrait painters, but also as writer and critic, the opinion of the Hon. John Collier on any subject connected with art is surely entitled to respectful consideration. The high standard of physical perfection attained by English women and girls has long been acknowledged by other nations, and it is, therefore, of deep interest to learn in detail from an expert in what this supremacy consists. Readers will welcome this interview, contributed to Every Woman's Encyclopaedia, as full of interest and instruction.

At her best the English girl is a remark-ably fine specimen of humanity. I should say that, considered from the physical point of view, she would certainly hold her own with the women of other nations, and, I hope, more than hold her own.

A Racial Peculiarity

The girl of our upper and middle classes who is able to lead the outdoor life, which is one of our notable characteristics as a nation, is remarkably well developed, and, on the whole, healthy. If I were asked to mention one of the chief cause of this development I should point to the fact that she matures late, probably later than the girls of most other countries. It is an accepted fact that the creature which matures slowly matures better than one which matures too fast. This slow maturing is, no doubt, due to racial peculiarity, and it has one great advantage in the fact that the Englishwoman does not grow old quite so soon as the woman of other nations.

As an artist, and a portrait painter, my eye is constantly attracted to middle-aged women who are exceedingly well preserved and set up. Indeed, a middle-aged Englishwoman is often a fine, handsome creature. This is partly due, I think, to the fact that the Englishwoman does not. as a rule, marry so young as the women of other nations. In my opinion, this is a great advantage, although I admit that early marriage is far better than a long engagement.

A Fault on the Right Side

The English girl is not so aggressively feminine as the women of some other countries. From the artist's point of view, the difference in figure between men and women is considerably greater in the Latin races. The typical English girl has.something of the boy in her figure. She is not so wide in the hips as the Frenchwoman, the Italian woman, or the Spanish woman; but, on the other hand, she is broader on the shoulders. She is apt to be a little flat-chested until she is twenty years of age or more, for the typical feminine development comes later with her, and when it does come it is not so accentuated as in the women of other nationalities. Her enemies, if she has any, or, shall I rather say, her detractors, who do not look upon her with wholly artistic eyes, will say she has a tendency to be over thin, but that I always regard as a tendency on the right side.

One rather important point in considering the question of the English girl from the standpoint of beauty is that people generally do not realise that in the standard set by the Greek statues - which I for one, as an artist, regard as the finest standard ever achieved in art - the difference between the male and the female is, as regards proportion, astonishingly slight. The female statues are distinguished from the male generally by greater softness and delicacy of curvature and less emphasis of bone and muscle rather than in actual differences of proportion. Of course, the female is a little wider in the hips and a little smaller in the shoulder than the male, but the difference is very much less than most people would expect. It is strikingly shown in some measurements originally made by M. le Comte de Clarac, and reproduced in a pamphlet by Joseph Bonomi, which gives the proportions of the human figure as handed down to us by Vitruvius from the writings of the famous sculptors and painters of antiquity. These measurements were made from four famous statues, the Apollo Sauroktonos, the Achilles of the Louvre, the Venus de Milo, and the Venus of the Capitol.

The English Type

Because of her measurements, I consider that the English girl more approximates to the ideal of the Greek sculptors than do the women of other nations. From this sweeping assertion I should like to exclude the Scandinavians, about whom I am not certain.

Understand, I do not put forward the typical English girl as the precise copy of the Venus de Milo. That is rather a fuller and more generous type than the English girl, but the Englishwoman often comes close to it. The girl is of a slighter or rather more angular build. In fact, I must admit, as a critic, that, on the whole, she is apt to be a little angular.

Another fact which strikes me as an artist is that the English girl is not remarkable for natural grace. This often comes home to me when I am choosing a model for a subject picture. It is not difficult to find one with a very fine figure, for many models are gifted in that way among English girls. In spite of her fine figure, however, she is apt to be a little awkward in movement and gesture.

Colouring

This, again, seems to be a racial peculiarity. I should not like to say that this awkwardness is due to the playing of masculine games in which the young womanhood of England is emulating her brothers. The class from whom models come do not, as a rule, take much exercise, and what they do take is hardly in the form of games. Perhaps the most naturally graceful women are found among the Italian models. On the other hand, those of them who come to England have nothing like the fine physique of the best English girls.

When I have painted classical subjects, and have had to look out for models for these pictures, I have had no difficulty in finding them with beautiful forms, but their colour is apt to be a little cold. But there are a great number of English girls whose complexions can hardly be beaten anywhere, and certainly not by foreigners. This is always said by foreigners to be largely due to the climate, which, as a nation, we are constantly grumbling at when we do not actually revile. The one thing in which we are a little lacking is the rich, olive, brownish skin which is sometimes found in Italian maidens. This is very fine, but one seldom sees it in English girls. For freshness and delicacy of skin and colour, however, I think that the English girl affords the best specimens.

One great beauty of the English girl is the variety of tint her hair assumes. It ranges from dark brown or black, through auburn to red, and through flaxen to almost white. One has only to keep one's eyes open when going through the streets to notice this characteristic and to learn to admire its beauty. It strikes the artist, whose eyes are naturally more highly trained in the faculty of observation than other people, and I constantly notice the number of well-known models who have beautiful hair. Indeed, some get more sittings for their hair than for anything else, on account of its beauty and abundance.

I once painted a portrait of a lady whose hair was just over six feet long. I painted her lying on a sofa, with her three children about her playing with her hair, of which she was very proud. It was a rich golden brown, and when she stood upright it rested for six or seven inches on the ground. One day she told me she had combed out rather a long hair, and asked me whether I should like to have it. I took it and measured it. It measured six feet one and a half inches. I still have that hair.

Dress

In considering the beauty of the English girl it is necessary that I should refer to the part played by her dress, for I need hardly say that dress is an important element both in accentuating and in diminishing beauty. Women themselves realise this to the full. I find expression given to this feeling in the frequency with which I am asked to design dresses for women whose portraits I am going to paint. I fight shy of this now, for I have found that when the dress is carried out by the dressmaker it is not in the least like what I meant it to be. In painting a portrait I am always anxious that the dress should be characteristic. For this reason I always prefer one which my sitter has worn rather than one which I have designed specially for the purpose of painting.

I have sometimes heard it said that the Englishwoman has not good taste in dress. So far as my own observation goes, I think this accusation is unfounded. I should say that the Englishwoman's taste in dress is as good as that of the foreign woman, and seems to have a little more individuality. The English girl is often strong enough to defy fashion and to dress in a manner she thinks suitable. The mere fact of her taking so much part in outdoor exercise and playing games necessitates her dress being of a workmanlike efficiency, which is decidedly to the good.

English girls, also, seem nowadays to be commendably free from that endeavour to distort the figure which has been the bane of female dress throughout the ages. There are not many English girls who torture themselves in order to have a small waist. This is more marked to-day than it was, say, twenty years ago, and is the result of the greater devotion to outdoor games. I need scarcely say, as an artist, squeezing the waist is the worst of all feminine distortions. It is not only very ugly in itself, but, in addition, it is very unhealthy. Here, again, it is possible to go back and compare the best type of the English girl with the Greek ideals. in no Greek statue is a woman represented with a small waist. Indeed, the Greek costumes did not permit of the waist being accentuated. The Greek lady never seemed to be aware of the fact that she had a waist, though, on the other hand, the Minoan civilisation, which came before that of Greece, was curiously fashionable in this respect. The women not only had small waists, but they even had flounces on their dresses. Nothing is uglier, to my mind, than the artificial division of the body into two portions by an exaggerated waistline. It arrests the general flow of curve so beautiful and characteristic of the female figure at its best.

Some of our most beautiful Englishwomen are, I am afraid, a little addicted to high heels. This is a pity, but they sin less in this respect than do other Continental people. The evil of the shoe with the pointed toe is still rampant, but even that is improving.

On the whole, therefore, I think "the beautiful English girl" is well worthy of her attribute, and that, with the cultivation of further opportunities of living the outdoor life, she will become still more beautiful and still better developed and healthier.