Leaking and melting: fat as the most enigmatic substance in cultural history
Obesity is considered by many to be one of the major dangers for people in developed countries. However, 500 years ago, fat folds on the body were considered not just a sign of success, but also an attribute of beauty. It was also reflected in culture - let's remember at least Rubens' debelesque beauties, at least Rabelais' phantasmagoric gluttons. French scientist Georges Vigarello has studied the history of obesity - critic Lidia Maslova presents the book of the week, especially for Izvestia.
Georges Vigarello
"Metamorphoses of Fat: A History of Obesity from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century."
Moscow: New Literary Review, 2024. - Per. from French. O. Panayotti. - 344 с.
The cover of French sociologist Georges Vigarello's book "Metamorphoses of Fat" is decorated with "Portrait of Gerard Andries Bicker" painted by Bartholomeus Van der Helst in 1642. The twenty-year-old son of the burgomaster of Amsterdam, who looks like a giant colobus, draped in elaborately painted red velvet, as if wrapped in red meat, looks very condescending, even smug, and is not associated with the word "stigmatization," which Vigarello uses on almost every page. He is primarily interested in the history of the devaluation and condemnation of fat people, which he begins with a self-critical quotation from a letter of the German Princess Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, who stated the sad changes in her appearance: "I am monstrously fat, my figure is like a cube, my skin is red, with yellow spots...." Praising the princess for the ability to look at herself soberly and objectively from the outside, inherent in "only an educated person," Vigarello concludes from Elizabeth's confessions that by the end of the XVII century, fullness "completely devalued".
The causes and aspects of this gradual but steady depreciation form the main content of the book: "The history of obesity is first of all the history of the different forms of persecution of fat people, with all the cultural aspects and social rejection of such a phenomenon. It is also the story of the special difficulties experienced by the obese person: his sorrows intensified by the imposed standards and the growing emphasis on psychological suffering. Finally, it is the story of the singularity of the body, which society refused to accept and which cannot be changed by an effort of will." At the same time, from the very beginning, Vigarello still gives fat people hope of being able to fit into society and cannot deny that there were times when fat was very much in demand and did not scare anyone away, but on the contrary, attracted them: "...in the Middle Ages, a massive physique was highly valued because it spoke of power, of good birth. In a world where hunger reigned, legends were told of magical countries where one could "get fat" and everyone was fed. Strength was associated with feasting. Fullness, according to medieval ideas, contributes to health. The splendor of the flesh turns out to be a social "privilege".
Considering the motives for discrediting the fat, Vigarello first of all singles out moral and social motives: "...the fatness of useless rich people is associated with the fact that they rob the people: an example of this is the fat and relaxed nobles and priests of the late 18th century, the 'gropers' whom the authors of revolutionary pictures send under the 'press', showing their worthlessness". It is not so much the thickness of a person as such that makes a repulsive impression, but the inability to control oneself behind it: "In the Middle Ages, fullness was considered a consequence of intemperance and passions". According to the sociologist, the aesthetic rejection of obesity joins the moral and ethical much later.
At the same time, there are always double standards in the attitude to fatness, when some people, depending on social status or gender, can be fat, and others are no longer allowed, and there are situations when gluttony is justified by a sense of beauty and elegance: "Louis the Saint himself, despite listening to the clergy's calls for abstinence, did not hesitate to give in to the "necessity" of luxury in food, believing it impossible to refuse the "temptation to eat something exquisite". In addition, it was often unclear at what point one could begin to condemn and shame a corpulent subject as too fat: "For a long time, in the absence of measurements and precise criteria, the reference points remain blurred, there are no intermediate stages and no clear division between 'normal' and 'very fat'". Terminology for fat people, as Vigarello writes, has also evolved over centuries, just like the criteria of fatness, and has resulted in a long game with diminutives: "...in the sixteenth century the words 'fat' and 'chubby' will be in use, in the seventeenth century - 'fatty' and 'chubby'; later there will be a scale for measurement, despite their inevitable imprecision, phases of fullness will be defined and attempts will be made to concretize them".
The most interesting part of "Metamorphosis of Fat" is connected with the aspiration of scientists and physicians to somehow determine the very nature of fat formation in the body, about which various hypotheses have been formed at different times. In trying to identify the substances and elements that make up fat, scientists often endow it with mysterious and ambivalent properties. Vigarello quotes many medieval physicians, including the French court physician of the XIV century Henri de Mondeville, who recognized the beneficial properties of fat, which "washing some parts of the body, moisturizes them", but still did not fully understand its nature: "Fat improves the appearance, ensures its maintenance. It enhances his attractiveness, but excess fat is a guarantee of weakness. The main question is, how can we explain its presence in the body if it is useless?"
The chapters devoted to the literary rehabilitation of obesity, where Vigarello, of course, cannot ignore the colorful characters from François Rabelais' novel "Gargantua and Pantagruel", are the most expressive. In Rabelais, the stomach becomes a kind of "motor", the engine of creative activity: "In the fourth book of the novel, the most ordinary and yet the greatest nutritional needs lead Guster, "the world's first master of sciences and arts", the potbellied god of gluttony, to the noblest discoveries - it was he who invented "all the sciences and arts, all the crafts, all the tools, all the clever devices". In other words, the stomach is the prime mover of invention."
Nevertheless, the main final idea of "The Metamorphosis of Fat" is that fat interferes with life and must be fought against, although overkill in this struggle does not lead to anything good either. Vigarello's more original and paradoxical conclusion is not to be expected, and in the end he slips into newspaper journalism, speaking approvingly of the fight against the abuse of sweet sodas among French teenagers.
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