Focus on The Beloved (Rossetti) and explain the Ideals of beauty.
While the painting is mainly regarded as a celebration of feminine beauty in general, it has been interpreted as a celebration of a specific type of beauty.  Most art historians assert that all the women are intended to be beautiful, "diversely beautiful damsels" with "the charms of four lovely faces" as the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica put it.However, recently some art historians have suggested that the painting's positioning of the models depicts the central woman as more beautiful. She has an oval and symmetrical face with blue-green eyes and Cupid's bow lips. Her paler skin may accentuate her beauty compared to the others. It is suggested these characteristics mean that this piece upholds whiteness as a standard of beauty.  But another recent art historian claims (because of her red hair) that the bride is presented as an "Irish exotic Other", also claiming that Rossetti "demonstrated a fetishistic fixation on skin color and race", and that her position as a bride "can be seen as a representation of anxiety of the increasing presence of [Irish] foreign immigrants in Great Britain."  But the model Alexa Wilding had red hair, which Rossetti liked to paint throughout his career. In his first two major paintings The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1848) and Ecce Ancilla Domini! (1850), he had used his sister Christina Rossetti as his model for the Virgin Mary, and painted her with red hair, which was not her actual hair colour, nor indeed at all usual for depictions of Mary.   A variety of interpretations of the standard of beauty and the black child has caused debates about Rossetti and this painting's relationship to racism. With the  central figure being a white female, some art historians claim that this piece idealizes whiteness.  On the other hand, others argue that the piece celebrates racial diversity.  The hair ornament of the bride is based on Chinese featherwork. The green robe that she is wearing is a Japanese kimono (though held tight at the wrist by a bracelet in a most un-Japanese way). The pendant worn by the black child is North African. For some scholars, these details indicate that Rossetti pays tribute to the variety of cultures across the globe.
feminine beauty Virgin Mary Ecce Ancilla Domini! Alexa Wilding Encyclopædia Britannica North Africa kimono The Girlhood of Mary Virgin Cupid's bow featherwork standard of beauty Ecce Ancilla Domini Christina Rossetti racial diversity