2009 - Sold

Golden Lilly belongs in my ongoing Oriental series and explores the ancient Chinese practice of foot binding. I am morbidly fascinated by foot binding and puzzled at how such an extreme beauty fad could have lasted for nearly a thousand years, eventually becoming conventional practice. All customs, traditions and notions of beauty originate in our social and economic environments, and I wonder what combination of factors allowed a fashion that required seriously disabling half of its population. Today such a practice does not make sense, but something at the time made it beautiful and even essential for a woman. What was it?