ErN 67
The Bearded Lady
Once upon a time, I commented
quite innocently and to all assembled, that a woman
visitor in our home had a mustache. (As I recall, it
wasn't a big groomed walrus affair or handlebar or Fu
Manchu or anything like that; it was just a bit of fuzz
that she had neglected to get rid of.) Whatever it was,
there was an embarrassed silence. Later, I was duly
reminded by Mommy that it was impolite to comment on "such
things." I thus grew in wisdom and in stature into a
typical politically correct member of my generation, bred
not to comment on "such things" as the physical oddities
or deformities of others. I learned well, since even
today, as I have commented elsewhere,
I am still taken aback by the local Neapolitan habit of
referring to someone as "ugly," as in, "Oh, you mean that
ugly guy over there?" as if you were saying nothing more
than, "Oh, you mean that tall guy over there?"
There
is an entire literature dedicated to our fascination with
— and I am so well trained that it is uncomfortable for me
even to write this word —"freaks." Indeed, when they used
to have real circuses and carnivals, the "freak show" was
very popular. This was not just a vulgar fascination,
either, not something you just threw out to ignorant
yokels 'cuz they didn't know no better than to stare at
freaks. Some of the greatest names in Western art have
drawn and painted the grotesque. Leonardo, Velasquez,
Rubens and de Ribera
all invited you to step right up and see the dwarf, the
monkey boy, and the bearded lady (de Ribera's painting,
right).
The
title of this painting is simply Bearded Woman and
is from the year 1631. The painting is now in the
permanent collection of the Museo de Tavera in
Toledo. The subjects were husband and wife, Felix and
Magdalena Ventura. Even before the painting, Magdalena
Ventura was famous. She was not really from Naples, but
rather from somewhere in the nearby Abruzzi. She was
already a grown woman with several children before her
beard started to grow in thick and full like a man's
beard. When the Duke of Alcala, the Spanish viceroy of
Naples at the time, heard about her, he invited her to
come into the big city and sit for a painting by de
Ribera, the Duke's own court artist and one of the leading
painters of the time. Magdalena's fame spread such that
she was mentioned in court correspondence throughout
Italy, reflecting perhaps our lasting fascination with
weirdness. The Duke and his quack medicos certainly
weren't up on such things as androgen excess or perhaps
the rare genetic disorder known as hypertrichosis; they
just thought, Holy Cow, a bearded lady. (I think the
expression "Holy Cow" comes into English from India; it
doesn't exist in Italian or Spanish, so the Duke probably
said something else.) But enlightened minds such as yours
and mine are, indeed, up on such things as androgen excess
and hypertrichosis, and we still think, Holy Cow, a bearded lady.
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