Description
Vanity Fayre by Karen Chappelow -90x100cm
Starting in the Tang Dynasty(618-907) in China finally banned in 1912, although some continued to practice this in secret, foot binding was done to young girls as it was considered an attractive quality and used to distinguish upper class to raise the prospects of marrying well . From as young as 4 years old their feet were broken and toes forced under the foot into the sole of the foot and bound. Big toe facing forward and 4 smaller toes forced under the foot restricting any further growth. The ideal size was 7-10.2cm!! My painting depicts the exact size on the horse to highlight how small they were. The horse is present as when these poor women walked they had tiny little steps and often looked and sounded like a horse. They were also known as golden lotus after the central life symbol of Buddhism, thus I have represented that in her hair.
Suffering for beauty is a concept familiar to most women, who have dyed, plucked or shaved their hair, squeezed their feet into uncomfortable high heels or even surgically enhanced parts of their anatomy. Millions of Chinese women went to great extremes to torture their body as we still do today
