Lighter than Air

A Gibson Girl in white evening dress sits in a parlor armchair, composed and self-possessed, while a man in formal black tailcoat literally floats off the floor at right—feet dangling, hand raised to his brow in dazed rapture. The joke is mechanical and gendered: she is gravity; he is weightless with infatuation. Behind them hangs a large salon painting of a woman in court dress, doubling the female subject as art object and social force. Candelabra, a settee with embroidered cushions, and framed portraits establish the upper-class interior Gibson used as his habitual stage. The caption, *Lighter than Air*, names the man's condition without irony—he has been socially unmanned by beauty, and the woman appears entirely unsurprised.