The conscription in Qing Dynasty almost included all the Eight Banners beauties. Why are the black and white photos so ugly?

People often say "three thousand harem beauties". The so-called beauty is beauty. Everyone is thinking about the life in the emperor's harem. Isn't this kind of life with beautiful women wonderful?

Take the Qing Dynasty as an example. All the concubines are carefully selected. It can be inferred that each of them must be as beautiful as a fairy. However, why are all the photos left behind ugly?

Although the Qing Dynasty was the closest dynasty to modern times, its scientific and technological development was still relatively backward. So the photography technology at that time was brought into the Qing Dynasty from abroad, and it was also resisted by people at that time. So many people are reluctant to try.

Because of the understanding of the principle of photography, the royal family slowly accepted this new thing and began to take pictures. Generally speaking, only some prominent concubines and queens can leave the country. Judging from the photos, these people's looks are really pleasing. Why are all the concubines in the harem of the Qing Dynasty so ugly?

Because the emperor was strong in the early Qing Dynasty, although there were some related families in the concubines, there were many establishments, and the emperor could choose beautiful unrelated families. At the same time, in order to compete, the related families did not dare to send particularly ugly ones. However, since Tongzhi, the establishment has become very few, and at most five are occupied by related families. For the sake of power, it is important to arrange their close relatives, regardless of beauty and ugliness.

It should be a question of choosing a concubine. The emperor has been staying in the palace. He has seen these maids since he was a child. He thinks that all beautiful women in the world are like this, and the queen or queen mother should not choose better than herself.

Most of the concubines chosen by ancient emperors were political factors, followed by looks. As far as the Qing Dynasty is concerned, the emperor had to keep his own ancestry, that is, he could only choose from Manchu, while Manchu itself had a small base and family background had to be considered, so the scope of choice was even smaller. Empress Dowager Cixi's reign was quite special, and the emperors were mostly decorations, so they could not enjoy many harem privileges such as the draft.

Carefully selected, the choice is birth, identity, and finally appearance. After identity screening, the scope of choice is actually very narrow, and in ancient times, people were not very good-looking. Now it seems that these nobles are not good-looking, but compared with ordinary people at that time, they are also temperamental.

It is possible that people are not ugly in person, but the photos are not good. At that time, taking pictures was relatively rare, and it must be stiff and unnatural to face the camera. Who doesn't have a few ugly photos these days? Maybe it's because the technical scum didn't capture the natural beauty. ?

At that time, photography began to rise, and everyone was afraid. Also, at that time, the camera shutter was very slow, and the estimated exposure time was only a few seconds. It was necessary for the photographer to keep a posture for a few seconds to ensure that the photos would not be spent. So most of the expressions are stiff. In fact, after a long exposure, I personally think that it is more natural to keep a whiteboard expression than to keep a smiling face, and the mentality facing the camera will also affect the effect. After all, if you know photography, have a sense of lens, have a modern aesthetic, obey photographers, not chemists, doctors, journalists, adventurers, priests, etc. It's not surprising to shoot anything. You know, even in the digital age, what you see is only the outstanding people selected from a lot of waste films.

There is a natural barrier between aesthetics and history today.

Of course, there is a gap in evaluating history with today's aesthetics. Now look back at the makeup in the 1980 s and 1990 s, and there are several beautiful ones!

The quality of photography and makeup has a great influence. There was no light at that time, which was seriously distorted. In a pile of photos in the late Qing Dynasty, people in China were as black as their uncle. The ministers' wives who took photos with Cixi are not good-looking.

Body posture is also a problem. They all look a little hunched. Unlike now, my sister will pay attention to being tall and straight when taking pictures. It may be that women were used to the humble and insignificant attitude at that time. Now it looks awkward. In fact, a person's expression and posture have a great influence on temperament. At that time, girls had to hide their chests, including hunchbacks. They couldn't look straight into the camera and could only bow their heads slightly.

Don't talk about ordinary people now, even stars rely on clothes, and taking a photo casually is very likely to be ugly. And bad photos will directly make real beauty ugly.

Another is that modern people have good nutrition, good health and developed medicine. The most important thing is that everyone agrees with equality of personality, so the momentum is different. During the Qing Dynasty, people in the imperial court generally had a hard life. Looking at the old photos of the Qing dynasty, many people were malnourished, emaciated, with no meat on their faces and listless, while the women in these palaces at least ate well, with meat on their faces and fair skin, which was better than ordinary women? .

The problem with the face should not be big. Mainly dressing up. The dress is wide and straight without curves and waists, and the hairstyle of the Qing Dynasty is a bit abrupt after all. In the Qing dynasty, several concubines later wore a dress and permed their hair, and the photos looked much better.