Rating: 
Summary: a case for all of us
Review: Simple and tells it like it is- or how it was and how it could be. A work of Art in and of itself, it was a joy to see how the fuller figure can be viewed as something beautiful.
Rating: 
Summary: Lovely, curvy women
Review: This book has prints of paintings, drawings, etchings, sculpture, photographs, and advertisements featuring curvy women, some highlighting their bodies, and others their faces. The prints are beautiful, and some of the best art in the world is featured. I especially love Rembrandt's Bathsheba (from the Louvre) and Reni's Cleopatra (from the Pitti, I just saw it during my stay in Florence). I do wish that the pages with the prints had the titles, artists, and locations of the works right there. Instead, the titles and artists are listed in an index at the end, and there is no mention of where these artworks are, so that if one is interested in seeing a painting or sculpture in real life, one can pursue this. But on the plus side, the book is easy to read, and very enjoyable visually.The book is divided up by topic (subject or artist), these being: Fashions in Body Type, The Cult of Thinness, The Goodness of Zaftig, Eve, Venus, Other Goddesses, Women as Symbols and Personifications, Cleopatra, Bathsheba, Hilda, Rembrandt van Rijn, Pieter Paul Rubens, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Boris Kustodiev, Aristide Maillol, Gaston Lchaise, Reginald Marsh, Pablo Picasso, An Opulent Age, Opera Divas, The Stage, On the Beach, Youthful Plumpness, Motherhood, Confidently Voluptuous, and Women's Bodies in Other Cultures. As an aside, which is more just a comment than a criticism: with all of its pictures celebrating size, it must be admitted that most of them are of fair, white women; women that have pale skin and women of "other cultures" are fit into the last chapter, and they are mostly other cultures through the European gaze (Italian, French, Swiss). While St. Paige argues that most people and most cultures have preferred heavier women to thin ones, can we also not argue that many people prefer paler people too, as evidenced by the images in the book. But I'm glad that there is an attempt to put people of colour in the book. The author puts a lot of emphasis on the idea that women are naturally curvy, and that thinness is freakish. While I agree that women tend toward curviness, not all women can be a size 20 either, just like not everyone can be a size 2. And the argument of "naturalness" doesn't sit well with me, as it has been used to justify many unpleasant things. I am not a zaftig woman, but I appreciate the beauty on these pages.
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