The Victorian Era is famous in reputation for being an era of love and romance, despite the strict rules of social ettiquette that today's society might find most suffocating. The Victorian era, which also encompassed a brief period in art,music,and literature known as the Pre-Raphaelite era, saw the rise of beauty,love and romance depicted in its many forms. Artists were lovers, and the two were not easily separated (as is evidenced by the lives of Dante Rosetti,Lord Byron,and many others), and while a bit of the repertoire of that era was considered quite scandalous, its beauty was prized nonetheless.

Women were valued highly as aesthetic objects, and many female portraits were painted during the time. Dark hair,large eyes,and pale skin were prized as the ideal of physical attractiveness, as was a certain amount of voluptuousness (which in today's era of Calista Flockhart-like dieting would certainly be considered downright plump.) Red-haired women were, while thought by some to be less attractive than their brunette counterparts, valued for their more sensual, tempestuous beauty. Dante Rosetti was known to have kept a mistress ("Her hair bright as the flame of autumn leaves..") who brought red hair into fashion among the artistic set (I rather like her,when I consider it...*lol*). Women with blonde hair and delicate features were treasured for their innocence and purity, and were often featured in paintings of young,virginal girls, cherubs, and women with their children.
Women in the Victorian era not only influenced literature and poetry as subjects and silent Muses, but as authors. The Bronte sisters, Christina Rosetti, and Jane Austen were keynote figures of the era, and their lives and works live on today as some of the finest examples of Victorian life.

Ask Me No More, from The Princess: A Medley, by Sir Alfred Lord Tennyson (1850)

Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee? Ask me no more. Ask me no more: what answer should I give? I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live; Ask me no more. Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd: I strove against the stream and all in vain: Let the great river take me to the main: No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more.

'Ask Me No More' (detail) by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

alt="Expectations" border="0" width="290" height="204"> 'Expectations' (detail) by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

'Her Eyes are with Her Thoughts and They are Far Away' (detail) by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

'The Favourite Poet' by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema