Fat Theory: Richard Klein

In Bodies out of Bounds, Richard Klein discusses fat in the beauty aesthetic in his essay “Fat Beauty.” He discusses various scholars on size and beauty, and at one point talks about Kenneth Clark, an art scholar:

Kenneth Clark likes painters who like fat girls. To be sure, he dismisses the Venus of Willendorf. She is fatness, he thinks, grown to be a mere symbol of fertility. He has little interestin th esexy mounds of the statuette, carved so softly in stone. It’s enough that the fat be fertile to turn Sir Kenneth off. When it comes to really fat, he backs away from his otherwise acutely trained sense of the beauty of what is solid, substantial, what has density and aplomb - the quality of being well centered and perfectly balanced. For him, her fat is too fat.

From the way Klein continues, he makes it fairly apparent that he doesn’t feel the same way; the very fat little icon can be sexy, can be a symbol of something other than fertility. The problem with Clark’s theory that her fat is too fat lies in the fact that he’s making a judgement based, not on evidence, but on opinion. In this way it’s easy to see how much of the academic community working in close proximity with body and fat issues behave much the same as the “health” community; they see a problem because they imagine it is there, they see ugliness and disease because they just can’t fathom that it couldnt’ be there.

Anyhow, that’s my little rant for today. Check out Bodies out of Bounds, and read the entry - Klein is a fantastic writer, and I’d be excited to read more of his writings on fat issues.