In the 19th century, British author George W. Hudson wrote a book entitled "The Path to Young Marriage: A Guide to Courtship and Marriage", and the book gained wide popularity at that time, as it guided men and women on the paths to be followed to be a gentleman or a suitable lady.
Nothing can replace true orthodox manhood, Hudson says.
In his book, he reviews the list of steps that must be followed in order for a man to express his love for the girl, and on top of the steps the writer advises a man who wants to reach a suitable wife not to flirt with any girl.
The gentleman is not a womanizer, and he will appear immature if he lashes out emotionally towards any woman in a way.
Therefore, the writer advises that a man should have a certain psychological and moral clarity in order to obtain a decent and valid girl.
A real man has to show restraint, otherwise he will make himself a laughing stock in the eyes of people with his inappropriate behavior, which will negatively affect his chances of marrying a respectable woman.
Likewise, women are advised not to accept any gifts from fans, and to wait for a real man who has the appropriate characteristics that reveal his precious metal on his behalf.
These qualities are represented in the strong self that does not weaken before his desires and instincts, and to deal with them with great respect and concern in front of the public.
On the other hand, a respectable woman should not disclose her emotions to the man she loves, nor should she show any romantic and emotional gestures on her, not even calling her lover in a melodious voice.
Modesty in clothing and morals was a prominent feature of women until the turn of the 20th century.
Amid all those rules and protocols that govern romantic relationships in the past, communication between loved ones was subject to the only means of communication available before the invention of the Internet, namely letters.
The man had to make every effort to get his speech into the desired hand of the girl;
Consequently, many of the paintings dealt with the topic of love letters by virtue of their social spread.
Read the message
For example, in Reading the Letter (1885), by the British social painter Thomas Benjamin Kninton (1856-1916), we see a girl reading a speech, standing tall and dressed against a dark background.
In the painting, Kninton focuses on showing the girl's tenderness and femininity by shining a light on her clothes and her propped hand on the chair as she reads.
As is the case for pre-Internet speech boards, there are no elements in the painting or narrative content other than reading the message.
The illustrators on the subject of drawing letters tended to adopt dark backgrounds to push the viewer to focus on the speeches and girls without distracting them.
Painting "Reading the Message by Thomas Benjamin Kninton" (Communication Sites)
The same idea is seen in the painting "A Grammy Answer" (1870), by the Dutch-Belgian painter Petros van Schendel (1806-1870), in which two women appear in the painting on a dark background;
The first one sits reading the love letter, and the other is spying on it;
Where you look at the reflection of the speech in the mirror, and the dark atmosphere suggests the secrecy of the act and its social uncommon, and that not accepting the man’s feelings easily was evidence of the good character of the girl.
Shandal himself is a painter of the romantic genre, and he specialized in drawing night scenes in the light of lamps, lamps and candles, until he was called "the master of candles".
In this painting, like the rest of his paintings, shadow and light play a poetic role.
It makes the subject matter dramatic and important, in addition to being emotional and romantic.
It is worth noting that there are several paintings bearing the same title as the Shandel painting.
Austrian painter Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793-1865) presented a painting at the same title in 1849, before Schindle.
In the painting, two women recite an answer in a romantic atmosphere, aided by Valdemoller's elaborate use of shadow and light, as the light is strongly reflected from the speech on the face of the two companions as if the happy news shines a light.
Ferdinand George Waldmüller was one of the most important Austrian painters of his time, and he had many landscapes and social themes, and he was known for the accurate description of the human face and the heavy body, and he took care to present his subjects in a realistic framework without exaggerating romanticism.
On the other hand, looking at the painting "Portrait of a Young Woman with a Love Letter" by John Bagnold Burgess (1829-1897), we find a woman against a neutral, dark background sitting with a letter and a rose in her hand and her eyes completely wandering, as if she had departed from this world with her imagination.
Of course, Burgess showed the features and physical structure of women without any narrative other than the idea of the love letter itself.
Burgess was an English artist known for his historical paintings in general, yet he did not fail to participate in one of the most exciting social topics of plastic artists, which is the love letters and the mystery and ecstasy surrounding them.
Painting "A Portrait of a Young Woman with a Love Letter" by John Bagnold Burgess (Communication Sites)
There is something striking by looking at love as a topic before the 20th century and before the advent of the Internet, which is that communication despite its scarcity and difficulty often ended with marriage, and marriage itself was rarely ended in divorce.
In contrast to the world of modern technologies, in which all means of communication and acquaintance are available, but there is rarely true love, and most of his marriages end in failure or divorce.