What is a pince-nez? Detailed analysis

The article tells about what a pince-nez is when this device appeared and how it differs from ordinary glasses.

Ancient times

Life on Earth has existed for several billion years, during this time on the planet a lot of biological species has changed, and even the most primitive of them, their arrangement, action and coordination seem incredible. Unfortunately, all living things are far from ideal, and even about a man and say nothing. And one of the defects that people acquire in the process of life (in rare cases - just after birth) is poor vision. The reasons for this are very many. In our time, hyperopia, myopia and the like have learned to heal, but this was not always the case, and for a long time devices such as a pince-nez were in use. So what's a pince-nez? And how is it different from the glasses? We will talk about this in this article.

Definition

This word has French roots, and the device itself first begins to meet in culture (paintings, poems) since the middle of the XVI century. And it represents a special glasses, which do not have behind-the-ear earrings, and are fastened to the nose by means of a spring clip. Now we know what a pince-nez is.

But such glasses - this is not the first device that people used to correct vision. For example, in ancient Rome, many carried with them pieces of special glass through which they looked at particularly small or distant objects. And by the way, Emperor Nero himself used a concave emerald when watching gladiatorial fights. Apparently, thus correcting my short-sightedness. So we sorted out the question of what a pince-nez is. But consider the history of the appearance of this device in more detail, and also we will analyze the genus of this word.

History

As already mentioned, the lenses in the pince-nez were held on the bridge of the nose with a special clamp, which could be rigid and fixed or adjustable - changing the distance between the lenses, the height of the arrangement, and so on. And of course, the clamp itself was made of some kind of soft material. However, long and comfortable to wear the product still could not.

However, in the middle of the 19th century, when new, more durable and lightweight materials were used to manufacture the pince-nez, this allowed them to be worn with great convenience. And this has given a new impetus to the spread of this device as an object of style and an optical accessory.

In those days glasses-pince-nezes were often made of materials such as horn, wood, rubber, celluloid, precious metals and so on. Initially, the lenses themselves had a circular shape, but in the same XIX century. The pince-nez of the oval form entered into fashion.

For ease of use and wearing, some models are attached a string or chain. The latter, by the way, was usually fastened to clothes, which allowed to avoid the loss of the device. And by the way, you can often find the question of what kind of "pince-nez". According to the dictionary, the word has a middle genus.

Recent history

By the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century pince-nez became firmly in fashion, and found application in quite different layers of the population. And often it was used as an accessory even in those cases when a person had normal vision. Because sometimes on sale pince-nez with usual glasses appeared, or they could be ordered specially.

The pince-nez was also used by representatives of the Russian royal family: in the photo of the 1860s the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich was depicted, on the nose of which one can see this optical device.

It was distributed all over the world, but especially in Europe, where it became an indispensable attribute of secular life. It was used by both men and women, but, of course, for those and other produced special models, differing in appearance, the presence of some ornaments, etc. In addition to the device that helped to see better, the pince-nez was a kind of symbol of intelligence, Education and culture. It was used by such politicians as Beria, Trotsky, Molotov and others.

Leaving out

Fashion pennies continued until the 50-ies of the XX century, but in the period of the Second World War their popularity began to fall dramatically. There are several reasons for this - new models of ordinary glasses (including sun glasses), and just a change of fashion. So we dismantled what this accessory was used for, the genus of the word "pince-nez" and its varieties.

In our time, pince-nez is practically not used, but still there are shocking lovers of antiquity who wear it. But now it is exactly the subject of style, because, by the level of convenience, the pince-nez is very much inferior to ordinary glasses with arches, and even more so contact lenses. In addition, modern methods allow you to correct far-sightedness and nearsightedness very simply and quickly, for example, using laser vision correction.

So we sorted out the question of what pince-nez is, and found out the genus of this word. We hope that this information will be useful to you.