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Artist Margaret Olley... "Conventional beauty is insignificant in the reckoning of a life." Photo: Simone De Peak |
by Adele Horin
"In an era of airbrushing and cosmetic surgery, Margaret Olley's extraordinary face challenges women to reconsider the vexing business of ageing gracefully.
With its crevices, marks and splotches, amplified over three columns in The Sydney Morning Herald front-page obituary this week, the late artist's face was a frank statement of a life fully lived. No evidence there of efforts to soften the ravages of time with anti-ageing ''product'' and ''procedures''.
What a face. What a lesson it holds for we women who obsess about crows' feet and liver spots and wrinkled brows; who hate the tiny lines sprouting like fine hairs above our lips, who hate our necks, and the bags under our eyes and much else that signals we are no longer young.
What does this face tell us? It tells us that conventional beauty is insignificant in the reckoning of a life. Olley, 88, was revered and loved because of who she was, not because she was, at any stage, a beauty. Did anyone care that at some point Olley had ''let herself go''? No, they wanted to paint her portrait.
People respected her talent, were drawn to her character, admired her generosity, and adored her wicked anecdotes. The outpouring of love for her, expressed on her death, testified to her special qualities and deep relationships. The philosophy she articulated that she was on earth ''to help'' is what has endeared her to so many.
These days looking your age is a matter of personal choice for women. Baby boomers can't believe they have got old. It seems only yesterday they got wasted at a Stones' concert. They look in the mirror, don't like what they see, and make a choice not to go there - not yet.
Today's beauty arsenal is bigger than the nuclear arsenal. Where once the choice was between Nivea and the knife, there is now a continuum of product and procedures that promise to erase years from your face.
Where to put yourself along the continuum is a matter of angst for many women. But with money, everyone finds a place more and more to the right. Women who devoured Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth in 1991 are now surprised to find themselves spending quite a lot of time and money on ''maintenance''.
Women who once shunned make-up in the brief period of au natural feminism now joust with new ethical questions: Is an eye job today's equivalent of eye-liner? Is it self-improvement or a sign of low self-esteem?
Are Botoxed news presenters realists or defeatists? Even on the subject of breast enhancement - pathetic or positive? - consensus eludes friends who are usually in fierce agreement.
At some point extreme efforts at self-improvement are a sign of self-hatred and self-delusion, of some deeper pathology and failure to come to terms with ageing. The tipping point is not reached with henna and Clairol - millions will attest to that. But to erase laughter lines is surely to erase a fundamental part of our personal history.
In certain circles, cosmetic surgery is so readily available that to desist is the equivalent of making a political statement. Holding out is viewed by some not as a badge of maturity but as a sign of unfashionable feminism, or of premature, defeatist, inflexible old age. In the face of the herd, it takes courage and confidence for women of a certain age to refuse to pad out laughter lines, plump up lips, and smooth out wrinkles.
Worryingly, ever-younger women are resorting to cosmetic surgery as a defensive, preventive measure as if the secret of happiness lies in looking 25 for ever.
The pressures on women to look young and beautiful are hardly new. But the technology to mislead is more refined. At the same time that Olley's unadorned face graced the front pages of the nation's newspapers, a furore was erupting in Britain over advertising campaigns that used airbrushed images of actor Julia Roberts, 43, and super model Christy Turlington, 42.
In a victory for reality over image, the Advertising Standards Council ordered the withdrawal of the advertisements for Lancome and Maybelline. The watchdog ruled the ads breached the advertising standards code for exaggeration and being misleading.
Roberts and Turlington's unblemished, creepily unlined faces are not what 42 or 43 looks like. The use of mid-life women in advertisements was supposed to be progress. But these mid-life beauties are not going to make women feel good about themselves. They have raised the threshold. There can be no thought of ageing gracefully at 40 - not if a little product and a nip and tuck can make you look younger longer. But even the super-beauties, it turns out, needed to be digitally enhanced.
Being 88 with a lived-in face is one thing. Being on the awkward path between middle-age and old-age is another. Does one give up? Does one adopt the attitude of French women for whom looking good and being feminine is a duty unto death? Finding a place on the continuum between Nivea and knife is tricky.
It may be helpful to keep in mind what turns out to be important in life - it is not looks but how one lived. It is not caring over-much about oneself but doing a lot for others. Relationships and work matter. Margaret Olley's amazing life and amazing face are a testament to true beauty.
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