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And Just Because
A friend of mine recently disclosed that if she could have a composer boyfriend, it would be Franz Schubert. I of course was thinking: you mean the ugly chap with the glasses? Why? But no. She claimed he was actually quite an attractive bloke in his youth. Well, this artist's representation is quite different I'd say.
It all comes back to the unfortunate reality that famous intellectuals are often known by photos of themselves when they are old. Which, there's nothing wrong with being old, but I think it kind of limits are perception of that person. Think of poor C.S. Lewis. Everyone knows him from that picture where he's all bald and fat and smoking in a chair. I mean, there's nothing wrong with any of those things (except the smoking) but he wasn't always that way. Likewise we think of stars like Gregory Peck and Gene Kelly as being perpetually young, because that is when they made their imprint. Thus we set up ideals that do not reflect reality. They didn't stay that good-looking forever. And so the stereotype of all the airheads being attractive and all intelligent members of the human race being ugly. Random post this.
2 comments:
I always thought I could see from that older portrait of Schubert that he was handsome...and wow, that young one certainly confirms the suspicion!
I love studying portraits of such people. There is a sketch of a young Liszt that I love, an older Dostoevsky that gives me chills, and Jules Verne was handsome even as an old man imo. And all the drawings of Keats I've seen are just gorgeous. Though unfortunately he didn't live long enough to have an "old and fat" portrait.:(
Heidi, I wish I were still on the other side of the room looking these things up with you. Thanks for sharing the internet time wasting, because I miss it. I mean, I have been doing enough of it myself at work, but I miss having company. You should read my latest post. I had an interesting experience with google maps this morning. :)
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