It is one of the most beautiful paintings in Danish 19th century art: A Nude Woman Doing Her Hair Before a Mirror.
The young model is sitting at an oval mirror, her back turned, her right hand lifted in the process of doing her hair. Her torso is bare, implying the intimacy of the scene; she must be alone, preoccupied by her own thoughts. She does not consider herself in the mirror, but instead gazes downwards and to her left. Her posture is relaxed, her eyes are calm.
The scene is erotic, but discreet: The artist is a voyeur of an otherwise very personal and intimate scene of female life. But he is also prudent. At his discretion, the breasts are concealed by the wooden frame of the mirror, and her lower body is draped in a white cloth - although that threatens to fall and reveal her buttocks. Her face is covered by her right elbow, and eye contact is avoided. But although her female characteristics are concealed, and her personal traits are anonymized, she is unmistakably a beautiful woman.
The model’s name is Florentine, and the artist is Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg. Painted in 1841 and no larger than a piece of paper, this image is considered a masterpiece of the Danish Golden Age. At the time, Eckersberg was professor at the Danish Academy of Art, and he had introduced in Denmark the French tradition of painting women nude. Eckersberg was fascinated by the female body, and in the painting of Florentine, he does not try to hide his fascination. Why is Florentine so beautiful? What makes her so different from the male models?
The answer, in short, is estrogens.
Oh, I am very sorry for the reductionism, but this is a blog on medicine rather than aesthetics. If you want the art critic's reason for Florentine's beauty and Eckersberg's genius, please read Ernst Gombrich or Hans Edvard Nørregård-Nielsen or look up any art blog. But here, Florentine and Eckersberg will serve the purpose of introducing estrogens. And please bear with me; it will soon be clear that although estrogens weren't the answer you were expecting, they certainly answer a lot of questions about women. And about men's fascination with women.
Produced and secreted by the ovaries, estrogens are the hormones responsible for the development of the female body. The quantity of estrogens is increased rapidly at the onset of puberty, and - in the concise wording of my textbook on physiology - their principal function is related to reproduction, changing the female sex organs from those of a child to those of an adult. The ovaries, uterus and vagina increase in size. In the fallopian tubes, estrogens cause the number of cilia to increase, which helps propel the fertilized ovum towards the uterus. In the breasts, estrogens help the development of the ductal system and the stromal tissue for milk production. In effect, the surge of estrogens during puberty prepares the female body for pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.
But this is not what fascinated Eckersberg. He wouldn’t have known anything about the cilia of the fallopian tubes or the ductal system in the breasts.
In the painting, the most striking female characteristic of Florentine is her skin. It is distinctively different from a man’s. Because estrogens have an effect on skin as well; fat is deposited at increased quantities in the subcutaneous tissues just underneath the skin. Additionally, estrogens cause vascularization, meaning that blood vessels are formed in abundance in that subcutaneous fat. And blood flowing through the tissues brings heat. In effect, the female skin is softer and warmer than that of a man’s. The touch of a woman is comfortable as velvet and temperate as a blanket, and that is why men love it.
In the painting, the most striking female characteristic of Florentine is her skin. It is distinctively different from a man’s. Because estrogens have an effect on skin as well; fat is deposited at increased quantities in the subcutaneous tissues just underneath the skin. Additionally, estrogens cause vascularization, meaning that blood vessels are formed in abundance in that subcutaneous fat. And blood flowing through the tissues brings heat. In effect, the female skin is softer and warmer than that of a man’s. The touch of a woman is comfortable as velvet and temperate as a blanket, and that is why men love it.
Eckersberg certainly did. Florentine is beautiful, and she is painted unmistakably feminine. She is tender, calm and sexy. Her skin is soft and warm from estrogens. She is painted with compassion and with love.
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Guyton AC, Hall JE: Textbook of Medical Physiology. 9th edition. W.B. Saunders Company. 1996.
Blüdnikow B: Eckersbergs smukke kvinder. Berlingske. 2015
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