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Show VENUS A BACK NUMBER. Poor old Venus de Milo! After reigning supreme for so many years as the acme'of perfection in womanly wom-anly loveliness, Venus must step down from her exalted throne and seek shelter in the woodshed and what comfort she may in tears. For, as a model woman, the Venus de Milo is impossible. For this we have the word of no less a personage than Howard Chandler Christy, a famous artist. The common run of folks know Howard best as the man who draws pictures for magazine covers. Sometimes Howard's fairest ladies are shown with green hair and red finger nails, but we suppose, quite likely, Howard is not to blame for that. Mr. Christy is no crude crayon wield-er. wield-er. Long ago he was graduated from the school which supplies fantastic youths with weird clothes in the back pages of periodicals, or draws pictures of a family riotously happy because, Oh, Joy! it has suddenly been discovered discov-ered that all the boys and girls, and even mamma, too, wear tho same brand of hosiery as papa. No, indeed, Mr. Howard Chandler Christy is not one of these. He is an authority on art, is .Mr. Christy, and for this reason that which he says about physical beauty is worth taking to heart. Mr. Christy says that the stream body line you'll learn what that means at the auto show is the ideal for human beings. The human form must contain no abnormalities, he says, but must preserve pre-serve an absolute balance of development. develop-ment. Bulging muscles for men nd accentuated ac-centuated curves for women are a gross violation of the rules that make beauty ' beautiful. "This goes for efficiency, too," says Mr. Christy. "You've got to go deeper than mere physical attributes to obtain real beauty. Anyone who has a pleasing pleas-ing figure cannot be considered beautiful beauti-ful unless he or she is able to employ this beauty gracefully. It is just the same principle upon which a person cannot can-not be considered intelligent, no matter how well educated, unless he can ( use his education effectively.'-' -At this point Mr, Christy pauseB long enough to deal the Venus de Milo a brutal blow, right on the nose, so to speak. It is inconceivable that any gentleman could do such a thing, but listen: "The Apollo Belvedere would make a good model for the modern man to pattern after, as concerns physique; but the Venus de Milo as a model woman wom-an impossible!" Not satisfied with knocking her down, Mr. Christy proceeds to leap upon the prostrate body of poor Venus with hobnailed hob-nailed boots. Listen again: "This may be rank heresy, but, personally, per-sonally, I consider the Venus too massive. mas-sive. Her head is too small for her body. Her waist is far too large. Her hips are out of proportions. Her legs ugh!" Poor old Venus; to think that you should come to this grievous end! Still thirsting for figurative gore, Mr. Christy takes an ax to another tradition tradi-tion long held sacred among those of the feminine population who are constructed con-structed in just the proper proportions to enjoy it. With one mighty sweep he demolishes the pedestal of tho "perfect thirty-six." He characterizes it as a "catch phrase to catch inexperienced I shoppers." He goes on to say that he has seen just as many "perfect thirty-eights" thirty-eights" and ."perfect forties." However, How-ever, he halts there. He makes no mention men-tion of the. "perfect twenty-two" or the "perfect sixty-five." From this it will be seen that Mr. Christy's observations obser-vations have been confined within a limited range. |