Uncovering Men's Bodies in Visual Culture
BodyThinker
is a no-charge multi-site internet club dedicated to
1) promoting the production,
2) facilitating the viewing, and
3) investigating the meanings,
of visual representations of the male body in the fine arts and
popular entertainment.
The club sponsors several operations which house numerous galleries
and
textual repositories. It thereby serves as a clearinghouse for
information--both written and graphic--about imagery of the male
body, as well as a forum for discussing the subject. There are many
thousands of images, and hundreds of postings, about subjects ranging
from the iconography of Antiquity to the homerotica of Tom of Finland.
Non-members may
view most parts of these sites. Free membership is readily obtainable
by simply filling out the application form(s) at the various sites.
Our operations include the following:
Headquarters on Yahoo:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/visualizingthenakedman
Headquarters on MSN Communities:
http://groups.msn.com/SpotlightingtheMaleNude/
Annex to Headquarters for Historical Male Art:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vtnmhistoricalmalenudeart
Viewable at these locations are galleries of creations in various
media (paintings, photographics, sculpture, etc.) by Contemporary,
Modernist and Traditional artists; chat, links, postings;
recommended reading and viewing; and (in the case of the site at MSN
Communities) on-going written discussions about various topics
relating to the depiction of unclothed men in popular culture
(movies, porn, advertising, etc.) and the fine arts.
There is also a jumpsite describing VtNM's purpose with links to the
various sites on AOL at
http://hometown.aol.com/heisnude/myhomepage/index.html
For VtNM Movie Recommendations go to
http://hometown.aol.heisnude/myhomepage/movies.html
For VtNM Book Recommendations go to
http://hometown.aol.heisnude/myhomepage.books.html
The depictions of the male body which VtNM celebrates and investigates
may have materialized long ago or just yesterday. They may be found in
painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, graphic arts/advertising,
erotica, postage stamps, digitalized art, cinema/theatre/performance
art, tattooing and other body decoration, nudist/naturist
documentation, DVD/video pieces, musical shows, medical
instructional/diagnostic picturing, no/minimal-clothing athletic
practices, and so forth.
Members approach imagery of the male body from any number of
perspectives, including practical-functionally, historically,
philosophically, theologically, psychologically, sociologically,
anthropologically, art-critically, aesthetic-erotically, etc. and/or
from various viewpoints including feminist, gay/queer, Marxist, and
postmodernist/cultural studies.
All interested persons are welcomed irrespective of gender, sexual
orientation, age, race/ethnicity, and background.
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>All interested persons are welcomed irrespective of gender, sexual
>orientation, age, race/ethnicity, and background.
Which, basically, is suggesting that the depiction of naked men is
somewhat of a taboo in Western culture, unlike the depiction of the
naked woman.
I wonder why it is somewhat of a taboo. Homophobia or the prevalent
idea that man likes to define himself by what he does instead of what
his body looks like? Women seem to be more concerned with the look of
their bodies than men (men also seem to be more concerned with the
female body :-)
Thur
"Paul Mesken" <usu...@euronet.nl> wrote in message
news:rnu2l0dc0bp86acbn...@4ax.com...
Don't know about your country, but our prudish past has left what
seems to be an indelible mark in our society and our views.
I am booked in for a course on figure drawing, and I have yesterday
expressed the hope that the model is female!
Can't help it, it's in my genes.
Thur
Paul Mesken
>I am booked in for a course on figure drawing, and I have yesterday
>expressed the hope that the model is female!
>Can't help it, it's in my genes.
LOL! Yeah, but you could get a really old female. Although there are
exceptions, I think of the body of an old male as more interesting as
that of an old female.
Electric Nachos
Thur wrote in message ...
It doesn't matter. In about 5 minutes into the drawing - the model will turn
into a bunch of lines and shapes. No big deal.
King Rundzap
I'm sure the most reasonable answer would be an analysis of western
cultures as predominantly patriarchal societies for most of history.
Female nudes, as public cultural images, first gained prominence in
the fine arts, and probably part of the motivation was for the male
artist to have a nude female model around, not to mention that was
what they were more interested in looking at and depicting in terms of
the artwork itself. This would also come from the patronage end of the
arts. Of course, some artists and patrons would have been homosexual,
but it wasn't exactly the sort of thing one would advertise throughout
most of painting's history.
The exception to this, in a broader cultural sense (historically in
general instead of art-historically only) is Ancient Greece and Rome,
in which homosexuality and bisexuality were much more open. Plato
talks about it a lot, for instance, in a couple different places, such
as The Republic. Male nudes were more prominent in some public arenas
(such as the original Greek Olympics and it's prominent in Greek and
Roman art), but those cultures were still patriarchal for the most
part, and after the fall of Rome, western cultures remained
patriarchal, but homosexuality and bisexuality were driven back into
the closet.
It was only recently that women began having a more dominant public
(at least) cultural voice, and even more recently that homosexuality
and bisexuality have become more accepted again. So male nudes are
relatively novel, despite some prominent exceptions, so to speak, and
the taboo is sure to wear off a bit in the future.
The U.S. is very uptight/Puritan about sex, although that kind of
attitude certainly isn't exclusive to the U.S. Plus, in some ways,
we're much more liberal about erotica and pornography than many
countries, which makes for that bizarre contradictory nature we
have--often it's a public/private contradiction.
--King Rundzap
Electric Nachos
Paul Mesken wrote in message ...
One interpretation of nudity is vulnerability (shown as the "naked truth,"
or vulnerability to being "exposed," etc.)
What MAN in today's society so full of secrets, backstabbing, greed, and
selfishness - is willing to be *this* vulnerable? esp. in public???
Woman are generally seen as (or purposely portrayed as) vulnerable
(defenseless - need protecting) type of creatures. Men are not. They are
portrayed as protectors - a knight in a shining Armani suit. A "suitor" <hee
hee>
Thur
"Electric Nachos" <aint_...@chew.foo> wrote in message
news:10l3kni...@corp.supernews.com...
trousers on horses. :-)
Thur
BodyThinker
For VtNM Movie Recommendations go to "Best Performances by Actors in
Naked Roles" at
http://hometown.aol.com/heisnude/myhomepage/movies.html
For VtNM Book Recommendations go to "Male Nudes Contemptuous of
Chic," "Movies Make the Man," and "Stripping Men in Visual Culture" at
http://hometown.aol.com/heisnude/myhomepage.books.html
BodyThinker
thoughtful contribution. (It is my posting elsewhere at Google groups
to which Paul refers.)
Seems to me it is more than a little premature to attempt any
formulation of the "most reasonable answer" at this stage of the game.
Thinking about the representation of the male body in visual culture
is largely uncharted territory. Although the subject has been
recently taken up by researchers and theorists in diverse
fields--including the social sciences, art history/criticism,
semiotics, philosophy, theology, queer theory, and
film/cultural/women's/men's studies--it's far from being one commonly
considered. Besides which, should we assume that there is/will be but
one "most reasonable answer"? It does please me enormously that Paul
and King deem it worthy of discussion. I could not be more in
agreement on that score.
It strikes me as quite probable that the production and reception of
male nude imagery is profoundly influenced by the homophobic and
patriarchal conditions within which they occur. Leastwise there seems
to be abundant evidence that such is case in Western cultures, and
quite conceivably in other cultures as well. But the specific dynamics
of these circumstances remain, to a great extent, unexplored and
unexplained.
While the case of ancient Greece may well be unusual in some respects,
it seems to me not nearly as exceptional as King suggests. MOST of
the history of Western art has been dominated by the male, not the
female, nude. The latter gained ascendency only in the latter 19th
century, and did indeed reign supreme throughout the 20th. [In the
21st century, fine art photography is already seriously challenging
its supremacy.] Even so, critical attention to the telling, inspiring,
prestigious, and authoritative male nudes created by male artists
whose sexual orientation was evidently not toward men is certainly
required if we're to understand the how/whys of portraying the male
body today.. One has only to think of such "masters" as Durer,
Raphael, Blake, Rubens, van Heemskerck, Munch, Ingres, Titian, Bosch.
Burne-Jones, Mabuse, David, Delacroix, Lachaise, Mantegna, Rodin Egon
Schiele--and no doubt many others who do not come immedately to my
mind--to grasp the point. Not only that: it is not in any way
self-evident to me what knowing that Michelangelo, Caravaggio,
Pontormo, Botticelli etc. might be what we today would call gay or
bisexual tells us about their male nudes, and the tremendous influence
they enjoy in many spheres of culture, not just art. At the present
time I am, for instance, much more taken with the possible
significance of the anti-body attitudes/ideology which has largely
prevailed in patriarchal and homophobic cultures. Perhaps it might be
more fruitful, when trying to discern the meanings which attach to
representing the male body, to dig into the associations of bodiliness
with lack (inferiority, mediocrity, mortality), in turn associated
with femaleness, in turn associated with bi/homosexually oriented men
[misperceived] as feminized/female-ized men, etc. etc. And when
recognizing how little I know about such connections, I am reminded
that we are just beginning to come to terms with the import of the
male body in visual culture.
Cheers,
Dan Doran
My original posting:
Visualizing the Naked Man (VtNM) Association
is a no-charge, multi-site internet
club dedicated to
1) promoting the production,
2) facilitating the viewing, and
3) investigating the meanings,
of visual representations of the male body in the fine arts and
popular entertainment.
The club sponsors several operations which house numberous galleries
and
textual repositories. It thereby serves as a clearinghouse for
materials--both written and pictorial--about imagery of the male
body, as well as a forum for discussing the subject. There are many
thousands of images, and hundreds of postings, about subjects ranging
from the iconography of Antiquity to the homerotica of Tom of Finland.
Non-members may view some parts of these sites. Membership is free and
readily
obtainable. Membership applications forms may be filled out via any
of the following sites:
Headquarters on Yahoo:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/visualizingthenakedman
Headquarters on MSN Communities:
http://groups.msn.com/SpotlightingtheMaleNude
Annex to Headquarters for Historical Male Art:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vtnmhistoricalmalenudeart
Registration with Yahoo is required to join our sites hosted by it;
a .NETpassport is required to join our site on MSN Communities.
Such prerequisites are easily accomplished by clicking on any of the
above links.
Viewable at these locations are galleries of creations in various
media (paintings, photographics, sculpture, etc.) by Contemporary,
Modernist and Traditional artists; chat, links, postings; recommended
reading and viewing; and (in the case of the site at MSN Communities)
on-going written discussions about various topics relating to the
depiction of unclothed men in popular culture (movies, porn,
advertising, etc.) and the fine arts.
There is also a jumpsite describing VtNM's purpose with links to the
various sites on AOL at
http://hometown.aol.com/heisnude/myhomepage/index.html
For VtNM Movie Recommendations go to "Best Performances by Actors in
Naked Roles" at
http://hometown.aol/heisnude./myhomepage/movies.html
For VtNM Book Recommendations go to "Male Nudes Contemptuous of
Chic," "Movies Make the Man," and "Sripping Men in Visual Culture" at
http://hometown.aol/heisnude/myhomepage.books.html
The depictions of the male body which VtNM presents and reflects
upon may have materialized long ago or just yesterday. They may be
found in painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, graphic
arts/advertising, erotica, postage stamps, digitalized art,
cinema/theatre/performance art, tattooing and other body decoration,
nudist/naturist documentation, DVD/video pieces, musical shows,
medical instructional/diagnostic picturing, no/minimal-clothing
athletic practices, and so forth.
Members approach imagery of the male body from any number of
perspectives, including practical-functionally, historically,
philosophically, theologically, psychologically, sociologically,
anthropologically, art-critically, aesthetic-erotically, etc. and/or
from various viewpoints including feminist, gay/queer, Marxist, and
postmodernist/cultural studies.
All interested persons are welcomed irrespective of gender, sexual
orientation, age, race/ethnicity, and background.
For questions, comments, and recommendations, contact me at
bodyt...@yahoo.com
kingr...@hotmail.com (King Rundzap) wrote in message news:<425a3330.04092...@posting.google.com>...
King Rundzap
> Seems to me it is more than a little premature to attempt any
> formulation of the "most reasonable answer" at this stage of the game.
Well, that's why we say things like "seems to me". We're talking
about our own particular views :-)
> Besides which, should we assume that there is/will be but
> one "most reasonable answer"?
For me, yeah, I can't imagine one (a "most reasonable answer") outside
of historical/cultural considerations. Someone else might be able to.
> It strikes me as quite probable that the production and reception of
> male nude imagery is profoundly influenced by the homophobic and
> patriarchal conditions within which they occur. Leastwise there seems
> to be abundant evidence that such is case in Western cultures, and
> quite conceivably in other cultures as well. But the specific dynamics
> of these circumstances remain, to a great extent, unexplored and
> unexplained.
No disagreement about there needing to be a lot done in terms of fine
details.
> While the case of ancient Greece may well be unusual in some respects,
> it seems to me not nearly as exceptional as King suggests. MOST of
> the history of Western art has been dominated by the male, not the
> female, nude.
I could be wrong about that, but we'd have to do a survey. Most of
the art I'm familiar with from the renaissance onward that had nudes
had female nudes, not males. I can think of a few cases of male
nudes, like the Sistine Chapel and scattered baby Jesuses, and some
works like Reni's Bacchus and Ariadne (although that has both male and
female), but I think there's a lot more like Baldung-Grien's Harmony
of the Three Graces, Sesto's Leda, Boucher's Diana, Tintoretto's
Susanna Bathing, Gossaert's Venus, Correggio's Magdalene, etc. It
would take an extensive survey, though, with serious research (we'd
have to do a pretty exhaustive survey through numerous catalogue
raisonnes), definitions of what counts, etc. Maybe you're aware off
the top of your head of a lot more male nudes than I am. I can think
primarily of the female ones.
> The latter gained ascendency only in the latter 19th
> century, and did indeed reign supreme throughout the 20th.
That claim makes me skeptical, though. Everything I just named above
was pre-19th-Century. How can you be familiar with so many pre-19th
century male nudes and not the female nudes I just named above off the
top of my head? Maybe if that's some specific fetish for you, but I'm
skeptical that you've done anything like a survey of it. I haven't
formally either, but I'm familiar with an awful lot of art throughout
history. All the stuff I named above is pre-19th Century. I could
look through some books and give you tens of other examples in about a
half hour, although it's not something I'm likely to spend a lot of
time on unless I'm getting paid or it's for some other non-financial
reward.
--King Rundzap
Ar'sDouvres
"Thur" <a@nospam.z> in news:wbt4d.5$ub...@newsfe6-win.ntli.net:
> As I remember reading, it was women in my country who wanted to put
> trousers on horses. :-)
trousers with a conveninet hatch?
i think the level of 'acceptable' male nudity tends to slightly lag
behind the 'acceptable' level of femlae nudity.
there're a lot of web sites if you serach...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8
&q=classic+art+male+nudes&spell=1
this one is rather specialized in topic:
The aesthetics of the foreskin according to art and artists... There are
also some very old schools of Rodin which represent nude adult males who
have their foreskins brought up behind the glans. ...
ame.enfant.org.free.fr/doit_eng.html
BodyThinker
dominated Western visual culture until relatively recent times, the
claim is not about some tally of canvases and carvings. It IS highly
probable that, were such a count undertaken, men's bodies would
outnumber women's as their subject matter. But such calculations
would be entirely beside the point. The basic sense of such a remark
concerns the far greater significance attached to representations of
male nudity compared to those of female nudity.
It is only a slight overstatement to say that female nude imagery has
functioned only in two ways throughout most of Western history: 1) as
a projection of male heterosexual desire, or 2) as a token of decorous
domesticity amongst the ruling-classes. By and large, the female nude
has been strictly confined to the private sphere. But, on the other
side of that wall, male nude imagery has been widely recognized as
embodying, reinforcing, and extending a wide range of collective
beliefs, values, practices and identifications. It has recurrently
been found at the very center of the discourses and operations of
religion, law, education, commerce, science, statecraft, literature
and the arts.
That such is the case should not come as a surprise. Our primary
sources (some would say alibis) for nudity in public art have been
Greco-Roman mythology and Judeo-Christian traditions. A few buxom
furies and graceful muses notwithstanding, the former is teeming with
unclad male dieties and heroes. Accordingly, folks in the West have
been witness to the seemingly endless spectacle of undraped physiques
from the likes of Zeus/Jupiter/Jove, Phoebus, Apollo, Ares/Mars,
Poseidon/Neptune, Dionysus/Bacchus, Eros/Cupid, not to mention
Narcissus and Ganymeade and a host of fauns, centaurs, and satyrs.
In like fashion, a man "stripped of his garments" is the central
emblem of Christianity. Particular heed has been accorded the
nakedness associated with Christ's baptism, flagellation, and
entombment. Grieving by his mother (Pieta), disciples (Lamentation),
and angels (Attended by...) also typically featured a nude male body.
Down the ages, the Church supplied lots of other male exemplars of
"holy nakedness," whereas modesty required its female saints to remain
clothed. From stories contained in what Christians call "the Old
Testament," artists focused on the bared bodies of Adam, Abel (and
occasionally Cain), Isaac when about to be sacrificed, Samson, and
David. It is perhaps odd that ostensibly incorporeal angels also often
appear in such art with considerable flesh exposed. This seems
especially true of the infantalized or "fallen" varieties. From
specifically Christian scriptures and traditons, many artists have
served up the unclothed bodies of martyrs (like St. Bartholomew) and
ascetics (like St. Jerome), the wilderness-dwelling John the Baptist,
and the damned (and occasionally the blessed) on the Day of Judgment.
Intriguingly, artists influenced by Christianity have also lavished
attention on the obscure but languidly peeled-down St. Sebastian.
So, at least from ancient Greece to post-revolutionary France, no
contest between male and female nude imagery was sanctioned by Western
societies. The male nude was everywhere the undisputed "winner." He
enjoyed virtually universal acceptance as the bearer of social,
cultural, political, philosophic, ecclesiastical as well as aesthetic
interests and intentions--in a manner that the female nude could never
have hoped to. Even when Rococo art was celebrating female nudity,
its influence was pretty much restricted to the music rooms and
recreation halls of Louis XV's court. Thus, for instance, few people
outside Madame de Pomadour's coterie could have layed eyes on the
naked nymphs and enchantresses painted by Boucher which are so popular
today.
By the mid-19th century, the shifting of female nude imagery from
bathrooms, budoirs, and parlors to exhibition salons, galleries,
museums and other public spaces was well underway. By the early 20th
century, it was complete. This development was intimately tied up
with the rise to power of the monied middle class. Not a few of the
female nude paintings and statues which had decorated the private
chambers of aristocratic women, or served as the equivalent of soft
porn for kings and noblemen, were put on display in large and
prestigious institutions open to the rank and file. During the 20th
century incalculably more people gazed upon the "Venuses" of
Velasquez, Giorgione, Correggio, as well as the "bathers" of Ingres,
Tintoretto, Watteau, than could have possibly done so at the time they
were produced.
Thanks to the burgeoning art history industry, even school children
have come to understand "the nude" with reference to the Aphrodite of
Melos, Botticeli's "Birth of Venus," and Raphael's Eve. And with art
patronage passing from Church and Crown to Capital and Celebrity, the
financing of female nude artwork, on a grand scale comparable to that
which the male nude had enjoyed, finally turned up. In the 1980s
Cezanne's son advised his father to set aside the painting of male
nudes and concentrate on its female counterpart because they sold
better. Later on, Matisse and Pacasso required no such counsel.
But it's good to bear in mind that our situation today is far from
being ever-lasting. Already, with the figure having regained some of
the ground it lost to abstraction during the last century, the male
nude appears prominent in the highly influential arena of fine art
photography. As the art historian A. Solomon-Godeau has shrewdly
observed, "...[T]he dominance of the female body in nineteenth and
most of twentieth-century icongraphy was a historically specific
mutation, one tied to particular determinations of modernity, and the
emergence and consolidation of bourgeois ideologies of gender. In
fact, the overwhelming preponderance of imagery of eroticized feminity
was relatively unprecedented. Since classical antiquity it has been
the male body more often than not that constituted the aesthetic
category of the nude and the male rather than the female body that
formed the core of art theory, pedagogy and practical training."
"How can you be familiar with so many pre-19th century male nudes and
not the female nudes I just named above off the top of my head? Maybe
if that's some specific fetish for you, but I'm skeptical that you've
done anything like a survey of it." Some fetish? That's funny--and
terribly sad. Gay-baiting so often rears its ugly head whenever the
subject of the naked male figure is being discussed. If memory
serves, I've never been sexually aroused by any male nude imagery.
But even if I were, it's beyond me what difference it would make. Do
we try to second-guess or discredit heterosexually oriented men when
female nude imagery is under discussion? The fact of homophobia
probably explains much about the KIND of male nude imagery we are
permitted in the West. It also goes a long way toward accounting for
how little we understand about the meanings of male nude imagery in
our own visual culture.
Cheers,
Dan
BodyThinker
> rodin is of which era?
You're quite right: Rodin doesn't fit my list of examples. (Although
I hardly think that being the case alters the argument) Also, on
second thought, Blake isn't a good example either since his influence
on the art of the nude was greater AFTER the ascendency of the female
figure.
> this one is rather specialized in topic:
> The aesthetics of the foreskin according to art and artists... There are
> also some very old schools of Rodin which represent nude adult males who
> have their foreskins brought up behind the glans. ...
> ame.enfant.org.free.fr/doit_eng.html
Thanks for the lead. Wasn't aware of this angle on the subject.
Cheers,
Dan
BodyThinker
> or vulnerability to being "exposed," etc.)
>
> What MAN in today's society so full of secrets, backstabbing, greed, and
> selfishness - is willing to be *this* vulnerable? esp. in public???
>
> Woman are generally seen as (or purposely portrayed as) vulnerable
> (defenseless - need protecting) type of creatures. Men are not. They are
> portrayed as protectors - a knight in a shining Armani suit. A "suitor" <hee
> hee>
You may well be onto something here with respect to the dearth of
naked male bodies in much contemporary painting/sculpture. However,
for most of its history the male nude signified power,or at least
nobility/dignity. Male nudes were rarely naked in the flesh 'n' blood
sense of the term. Art has traditionally "armoured" Apollo and David
in nudity. Their bared flesh is portrayed as a shield against
vulnerabilty. As a divinized man, even the naked vulnerability of
Christ is something of a cheap trick. Ultimately, he
can't be overpowered.
Cheers,
Dan
BodyThinker
right this time. It's
http://hometown.aol.com/heisnude/myhomepage/books.html
for "Male Nudes Contemptuous of Chis," "Movies Make the Man," and
"Stripping Men in Visual Culture."
bodyt...@yahoo.com (BodyThinker) wrote in message news:<659edb90.04092...@posting.google.com>...
BodyThinker
Western Cultures
A
Karl Albiker: Relay Runners, Sculpture, 1935--36
B
Francis Bacon:
Figure in Movement, Painting, 1978
Sleeping Figure, Painting, 1974
Study for Nude, Painting, 1951
Study from the Human Body, Painting, 1949
Study of a Nude, Painting, 1952--53
Three Figures in a Room (triptych), Painting, 1964
Triptych May--June 1973, Painting, 1973
Triptych--Studies from the Human Body, 1970
Two Men on a Bed, Painting, 1953
Baccio Bandinelli:
Adam [and Eve], Sculpture, 1551
Hercules and Cacus, Sculpture, 1534
Thomas Banks: The Death of Germanicus, Sculpture, 1773--74
Leonard Baskin:
An Ancient Stands Alone, Drawing
Mythic Warrior, Drawing, 1962
Nijinsky as the Faun, Painting
Jacopo Bassano: The Good Semaritain and the Man Who Fell Among
Thieves, Painting
Aubrey Beardsley:
Apollo Pursuing Daphe, Drawing, 1896
Ave Atque Vale, Drawing, 1896
Enter Horodias, Drawing, 1897
The Examination of the Herald, Drawing 1896
How King Marke Found Sir Tristan, Drawing, 1983--94
The Lacedaemonian Ambassadors, Drawing, 1896
The Mirror of Love, Drawing 1895
Perseus, Drawing, 1882
Jean de Beaumetz (and associates): Crucifixion with Carthusian,
Painting, 1390--95
Arno Becker:
Prometheseus, Sculpture, 1938
Readiness, Sculpture 1939
Max Beckman:
Adam and Eve, Drypoint
The Departure, Painting
Two Male Nudes, Drawing
Jacques Bellange: Engraving, c. 1615
Jacopo Bellinia: Dead Christ Mourned by the Virgin and St. John,
Painting, c. 1465
George Bellows:
Both Members of This Club, Painting, 1944
Dempsey and Firpo, Painting, 1924
Shower Bath, Lithograph, 1917
Stag at Sharkeys, Painting, 1909
Thomas Hart Benton:
The Bather, Painting
Discovery, Painting
Gian Lorenzo Bernini:
Daniel, Sculpture, 1655-61
David, Sculpture, 1623--24
Gian Lorenzo Bernini:
Apollo and Daphne, Sculpture, 1622--24
Flight from Troy, Sculpture, 1618--19
Fountain of the Four Rivers, Sculpture, 1648--51
Fountain of Neptune and Triton, Sculpture, 1620
Pluto Abducting Persephone, Sculpture, 1621--22
Bianchi dei Ferrari: Daphnis and Cloe, late 15th cent.
William Blake:
Glad Day, Colored Print
Illustrations for the Book of Urizen, Colored Prints
Nebuchadnezzar, Print, 1795
Newton, Painting
Satan Smiting Job with Sore Boils, Painting
Merry-Joseph Blondel: Aeneas Carrying His Father Anchises, Painting,
1803
Pierre-Paul Boissart: Model of Life Class, Painting, 1910
Giovanni de Bologna:
Apollo, Sculpture, c. 1573--75
The Dwarf Morgante, Sculpture late 16th cent.
Mercury, Sculpture, c. 1576
Hieronymous Bosch:
Adam and Eve, Painting, c. 1500
Four Panels (Palazzo Ducale), Painting, early 16th cent.
The Garden of Earthly Delights, Painting, early 16th cent.
The Hay Wain, Painting, early 16th cent.
The Last Judgment, Painting, early 16th cent.
Andries Both: Hunting by Candlelight, Painting
Sandro Botticelli:
Birth of Venus, Painting
Mars and Venus, Painting
Edme Bouchardon: Standing Male Nude with Staff, 1755
Francois Boucher: The Reclining Satyr, Drawing
Emile Antoine Bourdelle:
Hercules, Sculpture, c. 1910
The Warrior, Sculpture
Bramante: Christ at the Pillar, Painting
Arno Breker:
Prometheus, Sculpture 1941--42
Readiness, Sculpture, 1939
Jean Broc: The Death of Hyacinthus, Painting, 1801
Agnolo Bronzino:
Andrea Doria as Neptune, Painting, 1550--55
Grand Duke Francesco I dei Medici as Orpheus, Painting
St. John the Baptist, Painting, 1550--1555
Brygos Painter: Satyrs Molesting Iris, with Dionysos Looking On,
Painting on cup, c. 490 BCE
Edward Burne-Jones: Atlas Turned to Stone, Painting
C
Paul Cadmus:
Architect, Painting, 1950
Artist and Model, Painting, 1973
Aviator, Painting, 1941
Dancers Resting, Lithograph, 1974
Deposition, Painting, 1932
Fantasia on a Theme by Dr. S., Painting, 1946
Fences, Painting, 1946
Figure on a Shelf, Drawing, 1983
Flying Figure (MN 65), Drawing, 1969
The Four Seasons (on four panels), Painting, 1977--81
Gilding the Acrobats, Painting, 1935
Herrin Massacre, Painting, 1940
Horseplay, Painting, 1935
Jerry, Painting, 1931
Jon Anderson #3, Drawing, 1965
Le Ruban Denoue: Hommage for Reynaldo Hahn, Painting, 1963
Male Nude (NM 23), Drawing, 1966
Male Nude (NM 32), Drawing, 1967
Male Nude (NM 84), Drawing, 1971
Male Nude (NM 67), Drawing, 1968
Male Nude (NM 211) Drawing, 1988
Male Nude (NM 212) Drawing, 1988
Male Nude (TS 5), Drawing, 1954
Male Nude (TS 7), Drawing, 1955
Male Nude (TS 11), Drawing, 1956
Model at Mirror, Drawing, 1966
The Nap, Painting, 1952
Narcissus: Study for a Homage to Caravaggio, Drawing, c. 1963
Night Light Nude, Drawing, 1985
Nude of G.P.L., Drawing, 1937
Nudo (Second State) Etching, Set of Three, 1984
Peter H., Drawing, 1952
Playground, Painting, 1948
Pochahontas Saving the Life of Captain John Smith, Painting, 1938
Point of View, Painting, 1945
The Shower, Painting, 1943
Reclining Male Nude, Drawing, 1966
Sleeping Figure, Drawing, 1967
Sleeping Nude, Painting, 1966
Study for a David and Goliath, Painting, 1971
Survivor, Painting, 1944
Swimmer, Drawing, 1966
The Tower, Painting, 1960
Two Boys On A Beach #1, Etching 1938
Two Boys On A Beach #2, Etching, 1939
Vacationers, Drawing, 1944
What I Believe, Painting, 1947--48
Y.M.C.A. Locker Room, Painting, 1933
Alexander Calder: Male Nudes, Gouache # 606, 1967
William Frank Calderon: Man Holding Staff above His Head, Drawing,
1880
Robert Campin: Crucifixion, Painting, 1420--40
Antonio Canova:
Adonis Crowned by Venus, Sculpture, 1789
Cupid and Psyche, Sculpture, 1787--93
Enymion, Sculpture, 1819--22
Genius (from tomb of Maria Christina), Sculpture, 1798--1805
Genius (from tomb of Pope Clement XIII), Sculpture, 1783--92
Hercules and Lichas, Sculpture, 1795--1815
Napoleon as Mars, Sculpture, 1803--06
Palamedes, Sculpture, 1796--1804
Perseus, Sculpture, 1804--06
Theseus and the Dead Minotaur, Sculpture, 1781-82
(Michelangelo Merisi) Caravaggio:
Bacchus, Painting, c. 1597
Boy with Fruit, Painting
Christ at the Column, Painting, 1606
The Crucifixion of St. Andrew, Painting, c. 1607
The Crucifixion of St. Peter, Painting, 1600-01
Ecce Homo, Painting, 1604--05
The Entombment, 1602--04
The Flagellation, 1607
Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, Painting, 1597
The Martrydom of Saint Matthew, Painting, 1599--1600
The Resurrection of Lazarus, Painting, 1609
St. Jerome (Montserrat Monastery), Painting, c. 1600
St. Jerome (Malta Museum), Painting, 1607--08
St. John the Baptist, Painting, c.1595
St. John the Baptist, Painting, c. 1600
St. John the Baptist (with Ram), c. 1600
St John the Baptist (with Staff), Painting, c. 1600
Sick Bacchus, or Satyr with Grapes, Painting, 1592--93
Victorious Amor (Cupid Victorious or Love Triumphant), Painting,
1601--02
Youthful Bacchus, Painting, 1589
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux: Ugolino and His Sons, Sculpture, 1863
Annibale Caracci:
(attributed) Male Nude, Drawing
Procession of Bacchantes, Satyrs and Cupids, Painting
St. Sebastian, Painting
Samson in Prison, Painting, c. 1695--1700
Benvenuto Cellini:
Apollo and Hyacinthus, Sculpture, 1545--48
[the nude] Christ Crucified, Sculpture
Ganymede and the Eagle, Sculpture,
Mercury, Sculpture, 1545--53
Narcissus, Sculpture, 1548--57
Perseus, Sculpture, 1545--53
Salt Cellar, Sculpture, 1540--43
Satyr, Drawing/Engraving
Paul Cezanne:
The Bather, Painting, 1885-87
Male Bathers, c. 1875--80
Alfred Edward Chalon: Male Figure in Repose, Drwing, 1844
Clodion (Claude Michel)
The Deluge, Sculpture, 1800
Nymph and Satyr, with a Young Satyr, Sculpture, late 18th cent.
Jean Cocteau:
Illustrations for the White Paper (Le Livre Blanc), Drawing, 1930
(attributed) Illustrations for Querelle de Brest, Drawing, 1948
Abraham Cooper: Mr. MacDowell, Nude with Riding Crop, Drawing, 1856
Cornelius Cornelisz: The Fall of Phaeton, Engraving
Antonio Allegri Correggio:
Allegory for Vice, Painting
The Apostles Thomas and James, Painting
The Loves of Jupiter, Painting, 1524--25
Gustave Courbet: The Wrestlers, Painting, 1853
Guillaume Coustou: The Horses of Marly, Sculpture
Lucas Cranach the Elder:
Adam, Painting, 1528
Apollo and Diana, Painting
Crucifixion, Painting, 1503
Crucifixion, Painting, 1538
Walter Crane: The Wheel of Fortune, Painting
BodyThinker
Salvador Dali:
Self-Portrait, Painting
Socratic Dream, Painting, 1954
Honroe Daumier:
The Bathers, c. 1852
The Procession of Silenus, chalk
The Wrestlers, c.1867--88
Jacques-Louis David:
The Death of Joseph Bara, Painting, 1793
Hector, Painting,1778
Intervention of the Sabine Women, Painting, 1799
Leonidas at Thermopylae, Painting, 1800--14
Loves of Paris and Helen, Painting, 1788
Marat Assassinated, Painting, 1793
Eugene Delacroix:
Bark of Dante, Painting
Self-Portrait as Medus Survivor, Drawing
Pierre-Claude-Francois Delorme:
Cephalus and Aurora, Painting, 1822
Sappho and Phaon, Painting, 1834
Charles Demuth:
Three Sailors on the Beach, Painting, 1930
Turkish Bath, Painting, 1915
Turkish Bath, Painting, 1916
Turkish Bath, Male Figure, Painting, 1916
Turkish Bath Scene with Self-Portrait, Painting, 1918
Jean-Germain Drouais: The Dying Athlete, Painting, 1785
Patroclus, Painting, 1780
Jean Delville, The School of Plato, Painting, 1898
Edgar Degas: Male Nude, Drawing, 1857
Donatello (Donato Di Niccolo Di Betto Bardi):
Crucifix, Sculpture, 1444--47
David, Sculpture, c. 1440
Claude-Marie Dubufe: Apollo and Cyparissus, Painting, 1821
Jacques Dubroeucq: Dead Christ, Sculpture, 1535
Giovanni Dupre: Dying Abel, Sculpture, c. 1839
Albrecht Durer:
Adam, Painting, 1507
Adam and Eve, Engraving
Apollo and Diana, Drawing, 1501--03
Apollo and Diana, Engraving, c. 1505
The Bathhouse, Woodcut, c. 1496
Cain Slaying Abel, Woodcut, 1511
Christ on the Cross, Engraving, 1505
Christ on the Cross with Three Angels, Woodcut, c. 1523
The Crucifixion, Woodcut, 1495
Lamentation, Woodcut, 1495
Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, Woodcut, 1946
Naked Self-Portrait, Drawing, c. 1503
The Peninitent, Woodcut, 1510
Resurrection, Woodcut, 1510
Self-Portrait as Man of Sorrows, Drawing, 1522
Six Male Nudes, Drawing, 1515
The Trininity, Woodcut, 1511
Thomas Eakins:
The Swimming Hole, Painting, 1885
Salutat, Painting, 1898
Taking the Count, Painting
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos)
Christ on the Cross with Landscape, Painting
The Holy Trinity, Painting
Figure of Christ (Imagen del Salvador), Sculpture, early 17th cent.
Laocoon, Painting, . 1610
The Risen Christ, Sculpture, 1595--98
St. Martin and the Beggar, Painting, c. 1597
St. Sebastian Martyred, Painting, c. 1600
(attributed) Vulcan, Sculpture
Alfred Elmore:
Nude Leaning Back with Mirror Image, Drawing, 1832
Striding Figure Seen from the Rear, Drawing, 1833
Epignonos of Pergamon (attributed): Dying Celtic Trumpeter, c. 220 BCE
William Etty:
Nude with Right Arm Raised, Painting,
Rear View of Male Nude, Painting, 1807
Euphiletos Painter (attributed): The Runners, Painting on amphora, c. 530 BCE
Etienne-Maurice Falconet: Milo of Croton, Sculpture, 1754
Exekias (attributed): Slave and Donkey, Painting, c. 540 BCE
F
Francois-Xavier Fabre:
The Death of Abel, Painting, 1791
Roman Soldier at Rest, Painting, 1788
St. Sebastian, Painting, 1789
Rosso Fiorentino:
Dead Christ, Painting, 1530--40
Moses Defending the Daughters of Jethro, Painting, c. 1523
Pieta, Painting
Pluto, Engraving, 1526
Hippolyte-Jean Flandrin:
Nude Sitting by the Sea (various similar titles), 1855
Theseus Rocognized by His Father, Painting, 1832
Martin Fletcher: The Wrestlers, Painting, 1937
Frans Foris: The Gods of Olympus, Painting,
Piero Della Francesca: The Baptism of Jesus, Painting
Jared French:
Architecture, Painting, 1948
Coup de Pied, Painting, 1953--59
Crew, Painting, 1941--42
The Double, Painting, c. 1950
The Double, Painting, 1950--62
Eat, Drawing, c. 1948
Elemental Play, Painting, 1946
Evasion, Painting, 1947
Examination and Interpretation, Drawing, 1943
Figures on a Beach, Painting, 1940
The Four Ages #1, Drawing, c. 1945
George Platt Lynes, Painting, 1941--42
Glenway Wescott, Painting, 1940
Help, Painting, 1946
Homesickness, Painting, 1942
Learning, Painting, 1946
Monroe Wheeler, Painting, 1940
Murder, Painting, 1942
Muscles, Painting, 1944
Music, Painting, 1943
Painting and Sculpture, Painting, c. 1949
Poetry, Painting, n.d.
Prose, Painting, c. 1948
The Sea, Painting, 1946
Shelter, Painting, 1944
State Park, Painting, 1946
That French Island, Painting, 1962--64
The Rope, Painting, 1954
The Strange Man, Painting, n.d.
The Tropics, Painting, 1938
Two Standing Nudes, Drawing, c. 1945
Washing the White Blood From Daniel Boone, Painting, 1939
Lucian Freud:
</DIR>
Boy on a Bed, Drawing, 1943
Leigh Bowery (Seated), Painting, 1990
Man Posing, Etching, 1985
Man Resting, Painting, 1988
Naked Man on a Bed, Painting, 1987
Naked Man on a Bed, Painting, 1989--90
Naked Man on a Bed, Etching, 1987
Naked Man on a Bed, Etching, 1990
Naked Man on a Bed (second state), Etching, 1987
Naked Man on A Bed, Drawing
Naked Man with his Friend, Painting, 1978--80
Naked Man with Rat, Painting, 1977--78
Nude with Leg Up (Leigh Bowery), Painting, 1992
Painter and Model, Painting, 1986--87
Painter Working, Painting, 1993
Two Japanese Wrestlers by the Sink, Painting, 1983--87
Two Men, Painting, 1987--88
Two Men in the Studio, Painting, 1987--89
Two Men in the Studio, Etching, 1989
Two Men n the Studio, Drawing
Van Gogh, Vincent:
Male Nude, Painting
<DIR>
William Edward Frost: Man Standing with Sword, Drawing, late 17th cent
G. B. Frulli: Olympus with Ganymede and Saturn, Woodcut (after Parmigianino)
G
Otto Garnager: Prometheus, Painting, 1909
Etienne-Barthelemy Garnier: Ajax Shipwrecked, Painting, 1791
Paul Gaugin:
Adam and Eve, Sculpture (wood engraved panel)
Man with an Axe, Painting
Pauvre Pecheur, Painting
Loiuis Gauffier (attributed): Male Nude, Drawing, late 18th cent.
Francois Gerard: Cupid and Psyche, Painting
BodyThinker
Horse Stopped by Slaves, Painting
A Nymph Being Raped by a Satyr, Sculpture, c. 1817--29
The Raft of the Medusa, Painting, 1819
Study of Male Nude, Painting, 1810--12
J. L. Gerome: The Cock Fight, Painting, 1846
Pierre-Narcisse Geurin:
Aurora and Cephalus, Painting, 1810
Iris and Morpheus, Painting, 1811
Lorenzo Ghiberti: Sacrifice of Isaac, Sculpture, c. 1401
David Ghilchick: Nude Male Figure with Vase of Flowers, Painting, 1920
Giambologna (Giovanni da Bologna):
Crucifix, Sculpture, 1594--98
Ocean, Sculpture, 1570--72
The Rape of a Sabine, Sculpture, 1581--82
Sampson Slaying a Philistine, Sculpture, 1561--62
Palma Giovani: Dead Christ Supported by Angels, Mixed Media
Jean-Baptiste Giraud: Auchilles, 1789
Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson:
The Burial of Atala, Painting, 1808
"Odes of Anacreon" Illustrations for..., Drawing, 1869
The Sleep of Endymion, Painting, 1791
Gossaert: Neptume and Amphitrite, Painting
Goya: The Colossus, Painting
Urs Graft: Satyr with Naked Woman and Dead Man, Etching, 1513
Jean-Pierre Granger:
Apollo and Cyparissus, 1817
Ganymede, Painting, 1812
Duncan Grant:
The Bathers, Painting, 1933
Bathing, Painting, 1911
Cupid and Psyche, Painting, c 1920
Design for a Bedhead, Drawing with wash, c. 1917
Dockers, Painting, c. 1958
Father and Son, Painting, 1929
Figure Lying on His Back, Drawing, 1951
Figure with Sharp Hip, Drawing, 1948
Football, Painting, 1911
Garden of Gethsemane, Painting, 1950
The Good Shepherd, Painting, 1958
Homoerotica (77 items) Mixed Media,
created and circulated privately from early 1950s until 1978
Log-box, Painting, 1917
Male Genitals, Drawing, 1971
Paul Roche, Drawing, 1953
Portrait of David Garnett, Painting, 1916
Tony Asseratti, Painting, c. 1929
Nicola Grassis: The Flagellation of Christ, Painting
Horation Greenough: George Washington, Sculpture, 1840
Hans Baldung Grien:
Aristotle and Phyllis, Etching, 1513
Crucifixion, Painting, 1512
Drunken Silenus, Etching, 1513--14
Jean-Antoine Gros:
Murat Defeating the Egyptian Army in the Battle of Aboukir, Painting
Pesthouse at Jaffa, Painting
Mattis Grunewald:
The Entombment, Painting, c. 1515
The Crucifixion, Painting, c. 1515
St. Sebastian, Painting, c. 1515
H
Henry James Haley:
Nude with Hand Raised to Cheek, Drawing, 1898
Nude with Hands Behind Back, Drawing, 1898
Marsden Hartley:
Badly Bruised--Who Is He? Drawing, c. 1940
Canuck Yankee Lumberjack at Old Orchard Beach, Maine, Painting, 1940--
01
Finnish-Yankee Sauna, Painting, 1938--39
Madawaska--Acadian Light--Heavy (2nd Arrangement) Painting, 1940
Untitled (Subject: Thirteen Lobstermen and Christ Figure--Deposition
Concept, Drawing, c. 1940
Maerten van Heemskerck:
Man of Sorrows, Painting, 1525
Man of Sorrows, Painting, 1530
Man of Sorrows, Painting, 1532
Francois-Joseph Heim: Theseus Slaying the Minotaur, Painting, 1807
Keith Henderson: Youth Rising Up from Under Water, Drawing, late 18th
cent.
George von Hildebrand: Youth, Sculpture, 1804
Hildegard of Bingen: Man (as microcosmos), Painting (frontpiece of
illustrated manuscript, before 1179)
Carl Hofer: Man In Ruins, Painting
Hogarth: Bedlam, Painting
Ferdinand Holder: The Spring, Painting
Henry Holiday: Running Man, Drawing, 1855
Winslow Homer: Gulf Stream, Painting
Harriet Hosmer: Sleeping Faun, Sculpture, mid-19th cent.
Houdon: Morpheus, Sculpture
Wolf Huber: Lamentation, Painting, 1524
Holman Hunt: The Shadow of Death, 1870--73
I
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres:
Achilles Receiving the Ambassadors of Agamemmnon, Painting, 1801
Jupiter and Thetis, Painting
Oedipus and the Sphinx, Painting, 1801
Virgil Reading from the "Aeneid" to Augustus, Painting
J
Albert Janesch: Water Sports, Sculpture, 1936
Maude Sherwood Jewett: Two Dancers, Sculpture, c. 1920
Ernst Josephson: The Creation of Adam, Drawing
K
John Kane: Self-Portrait, Painting
Rockwell Kent: The Voyageurs, Painting
Leonard Kern: Adam [and Eve] Sculpture
Willem Key: Pieta, Painting, after 1530
David Kindt: Lamentation, Painting, 1631
Max Klinger: Beethoven, Sculpture, 1897--1902
Georg Kolbe:
Couple, Sculpture, 1937
Dancer, Sculpture, 1914
Oskar Kokoschka: Man and Woman, Drawing
Kritios and Nesiotes: The Tyrannicides Harmodios and Aristogeition,
Sculpture, 477 BCE
L
Gaston Lachaise:
Man, Sculpture, 1938
Standing Male Figure, Drawing
St. John the Baptist, Painting
Louis Lafitte: The Dying Warrior, Painting, 1795
Louis Lagrenee: Diana and Endymion, Painting, 1768
Frederic Leighton:
Athlete Wrestling with Python, Sculpture, 1877
Sluggard, Sculpture
Charles-Paul Landon: Daedalus and Icarus, Painting, 1799
Giovanni Lanfranco: Young Man on Bed with Cat, Painting
Jean-Nicolas Laugier Death of Leander, Painting, 1816
Jerome Martin Langlois: Diana and Endymion, c. 1815
Thomas Lawrece: Satan Calling His Legions, Painting, late 18th cent.
Charles Lebrum: Prometheus Bound, Drawing
Fernard Leger: Figure, Painting
Alphonse Legroas: Figure with Staff, Drawing, 1866
Wilhelm Lehmbruck: Young Man Standing, Sculpture, 1913
Leonardo da Vinci:
Back View of Male Nude, Drawing
Human Figure in Circle & Square as Vitruvius on Proportion, Drawing,
1485--90
Nicolas-Bernard Lepicie: Narcissus, Painting, 1771
Eustache LeSueur: Gaymede Riding on the Eagle, Painting
Battista Lorenzi: Ganymede Riding the Eagle, Sculpture
John Henry Lorimer:
Half-Nude in Profile, Painting, late 19th cent.
Head and Torso of Nude, Painting, late 19th cent.
George Luks: The Wrestlers, Painting
M
Mabuse (Jan Gossaet):
Hercules and Deianeria, Painting, 1517
Neptune and Amphitrite, Painting, 1516
Girolamo Macchietti: Baths of Pozzuoli, Painting, 1570--73
Stanton Macdonald-Wright: Synchrony in Green and Orange, Painting
Rene Magritte: The Ocean, 1943
Lorenzo Maitani: figures of The Damned from the Last Judgment,
Sculpture, 131--1330
Eduoard Manet: Dead Christ with Angels, Painting, 1864
Angrea Mantegna:
Dead Christ, Painting, c. 1500
Envy and Triton, Drawing
Parnassus, Painting
St. Sebastian, Painting, c. 1457--58
Reginald Marsh:
Coney Island Beach, Mixed Media
Swimming Off West Market, Mixed Media
Carl Hermann Martini: Standing Figure in Full Frontal, Drawing, early
19th cent.
Masaccio: The Expulsion of Adam and Eve, Painting, 1427--28
Master of St. Giles: Baptism of Clovis, Painting
Henre Matisse:
The Game of Bowls, Painting
Nympth and Satyr, Painting
The Slave, Sculpture
Damiano Mazza: The Rape of Ganymede, Painting, 16th cent.
Anton Raphael Mengs: Perseus and Andromeda, Painting, 1777
Antonin Mercie: David with Head of Goliath, Sculpture
Antonello Da Messina:
The Martrydom of St. Sebastian, Painting, c. 1475-- 77
Pieta
Richard Mestmacott:
Achilles, Sculpture, 1822
Negro Figure from the Monument to Charles J. Fox
Charles Meynier: Adolescent Eros Weeping Over the Portrait of the Lost
Psyche, Painting 1782
Michelangelo (Buonarroti):
"The Accademia Slaves," Unfinished Sculpture of Young Slave, Block-
Headed Slave, Bearded Slave & Awakening Slave, 1520--1530
Bacchus, Sculpture, c.1496-97
Battle of the Centaurs, Sculpture (Relief), c. 1492
Crucifixion of Christ, Drawing, c. 1535
David, Sculpture, 1501--1504
Day (from Tomb of Giuliano), Sculpture, 1520--1534
The Doni Tondo, Painting, 1504
The Dream, Drawing, c. mid-16th cent.
Dusk (from Tomb of Lorenzo), Sculpture, 1520--1534
The Dying Slave, Sculpture, 1513--1516
Moses, Sculpture, 1513--1516
Pieta, Drawing, c. 1535
(The Florentine) Pieta, Sculpture, 1547--1555
(The Rondanini) Pieta, Sculpture, 1556--1564
(The Rome) Pieta, Sculpture, 1498--1499
The Crucifixion of St. Peter (Pauline Chapel Frescos), Painting, 1546
Punishment of Tityus, Drawing 1530--1540
Rape of Ganymede, Drawing, 1532--33
The Rebellious Slave, Sculpture, 1513--1516
The Risen Christ, Drawing, 1532--33
The Risen Christ, Sculpture, 1519--1520
The Sistine Chapel Frescos, Painting, 1508--1512, particularly figures
of
The Creation of Adam
The Creation of the Planets and the Sun and Moon (God's buttocks)
The Deluge
The Drunkenness of Noah
The Ignudi
The Last Judgment
The Temptation of Adam and Eve
Struggling Captive, Sculpture, c. 1514
The Victory, Sculpture, 1525--1530
Joan Miro: Male Nude, Drawing, 1917
Amadeo Modigliani: Resting Male Nude, Drawing
John Everett Millais: Standing Nude with Staff, Drawing, 1846
Martinez Montanes: Cristo de la Clemencia, Sculpture, 1603
Gustave Moreau:
The Dead Poet Borne by a Centaur, Painting
Oedipus and the Sphinx, Painting, 1864
Moretto da Brescia: Ecce Homo, Painting, c. 1550
Otto Mueller: Adam and Eve, Painting
Edvard Munch:
A Bathing Establishment, Painting, 1907
Men Bathing, Painting
The Kiss, Aquitint and Drypoint, 1895s
Bartolome Esteban Murillo: Christ after the Flagellation, 1650--70
Mryon: Discus Thrower (Discobolus), Sculpture Roman copy of Ancient
Greek
N
Alice Neel: Joe Gould, Painting, 1933
Neisos: Alexander the Great with Aegis and Thunderbolt, Sculpture
(engraving in carnelian stone), c. 300-250 BCE
Nikosthenes Painter: Satyr's Orgy, Painting on cup, c. 500 BCE
Niobid Painter (attributed): Satyr Chorus, Painting on volute Krater,
c. 450 BCE
O
Johannes Ottesen: Standing Nude Youth, Painting, early 19th cent.
P
Leon Palliere: Telemachus and Odysseus Slaying the Suitors of
Penelope, Painting, 1812
Francesco Parmigianino:
Amor (Cupid Carving His Bow), Painting
Apollo and Marsyas, Drawing
The Death of Orpheus, Drawing
Ganymede and Hebe, Drawing
Ganymede Serving Nector to the Gods, Drawing,
Nude Man Seen from Behind, Drawing
Two Naked Shepherds Seated against a Tree, Drawing
Vulcan Showing Mars and Venus Caught in the Net to the Assembled Gods,
Drawing, ,1534--40
Pedieus Painter (attributed): Orgy, Painting on cup, c. 510 BCE
Peithinos: Courting Males, Painting on cup, c. 500 BCE
Sebastiano del Peombo: Pieta, Painting
Pietro Perugino:
Apollo and Marsyas, Painting, 1490--1500
Georg Petel: St. Sebastian, Sculpture
Pablo Picasso:
The Embrace, Painting, 1903
Life, Painting
The Rape, Painting, 1920
Germain Pilon: Effigy of Henry II for His Tomb, Sculpture, 1565--70
Andrea Pisano: The Baptism of Christ, Sculpture, c. 1330
Henry C. Pitz: Riders to the Sea, Painting, 1968
Antonio del Pollaiulo:
Adam, Drawing (ink & wash)
Hercules and Antaes, Sculpture
Hercules and Antaes, Painting
Hercules Overcoming the Hydra, Painting, c. 1460
Ten Fighting Nudes, Engraving, 1460--80
BodyThinker
Athlete, Sculpture, c. 430 BCE
Doryphoros, Sculpture, c. 440 BCE
Jacopo Pontormo:
Self Portrait, c. 1525
Study of Three Walking Men, Drawing
Young Man Holding Small Child, Drawing
Nicolas Pouissin:
Bacchanale, Painting
The Childhood of Bacchus, Painting
Garden of the Ancients [The Cyclops], Painting
The Poet's Muse, Paintin
Rinaldo and Armida, Painting
The Triumph of Bacchus, Painting
Edward John Poynter: Mercury (Study of a Classical Youth), Drawing,
late 19th--early 20th cent
Praxiteles (attributed):
Apollo with a Lizard, Sculpture, c. 350 BCE
Hermes with the Infant Dionysos, Sculpture, c. 343 BCE
Pouring Satyr, Sculpture, c. 370 BCE
Resting Satyr, Sculpture, c. 340 BCE
Mattia Pret: Dead Christ with Angels, Painting,
Pierre-Paul Prud'hon:
Adonis, Chalk Drawing
The Union of Love and Friendship, Painting, 1793
Venus and Adonis, Painting, 1810
Pierre Puget: Milo of Cotona, Sculpture
R
Raffaelle da Montelupo: Jupiter Kissing Ganymede, Drawing
Giulio Ramano:
Jupiter Kissing Cupid, Painting
Jove and Olympia, Painting, 1525--35
Venus Swoons in the Arms of Jupiter, Painting (executed by assistant
Raphael (Raffaekki Sabzui):
Adam and Eve, Painting
Building the Ark, Painting
The Entombment of Christ, Painting
The Feast of the Gods, Drawings
Fire in the Borga, Painting
Triumpth of Galatea, Painting, c. 1511
Jean-Baptiste Regnault: Liberty or Death, Painting, 1795
Rembrandt: Deposition, Painting
Jose Ribera: St. Barthalomew. Painting, c. 1638
Jusepe de Riberia: The Entombment, Painting, 1630
Germaine Richier: The Storm, Sculpture, 1949
Barthe Richmond: African Youth Playing Flute, Sculpture
Larry Rivers,
Frank, Nude, Painting
Joseph, Painting, 1954
Eric Robertson: The Artist and His Model, Drawing, 1911
Auguste Rodin:
The Age of Bronze (L'Age D'Airain), Sculpture, 1876
The Burghers of Calais, Sculpture
The Eternal Idol, Sculpture, 1889/Eternal Springtime, Sculpture
"I Am Beautiful," Sculpture
Naked Balzac, Sculpture, 1896
St. John the Baptist Preaching, Sculpture
The Shade, Sculpture, c. 1898
Ugolino, Sculpture, 1882
Walking Man, Sculpture, 1900
Georg Roemer: Reconstruction of the Doryphoros of Polykleitos,
Sculpture, 1920--21
Giulio Romano: Study for the Fire of Borga, Drawing
Giovanni Baptsta Rosa:
Apollo with Cyparissus, Drawing
Dead Christ with Angels, Painting
Il Rosso: Moses Defending the Daughters of Jethro, Painting
Peter-Paul Rubens:
Back of the Blacksmith, Drawing
Birth of Louis XIII, Painting
Christ on the Cross, Painting
The Consequences of War, Painting
Daniel in the Lion's Den, Painting, c. 1615
The Death of Argus, Painting, 1611
Descent from the Cross, Painting, c. 1611
Elevation of the Cross, Painting
The Four Quartets of the Globe, Painting
Ganymede, Painting, c. 1636
Ganymede and Hebe, Painting
The Last Judgment, Painting
Prometheus Bound, Painting, 1611-12
Rape of Ganymede, Painting
The Rape of Hippodameia, Painting
St. Sebastian, Painting, 1615
Silenus, Drawing, 1600-08
Sinners Saved by Penitence, Painting
Study for the Figure of Christ, Drawing
Study of Two Male Nudes, Painting
Study of Sprawling Male Nude, Drawing
The Triumph of the Victor, Painting, c. 1614
Venus and Adonis, Painting, c. 1615
Venus Lamenting the Dead Adonis, Drawing, 1612
S
Francesco da Sant'Agato: Hercules, Sculpture, c. 1910
John Singer Sargent:
Apollo, Drawing, 1921--25
Bather in Florida, Painting, 1917
Cellini's 'Perseus', Painting, 1907
Classic and Romantic Art, Painting, 1916--21
Figure and Pool, Painting, 1917
Figure and Trees, Florida, Painting, 1917
Figure on Beach, Florida, Painting, 1917
Figure Study: Man Standing, Drawing, n.d.
Figure Study of Thomas E. McKeller, Drawing, 1917--20
Figure with Red Drapery, Painting, after 1900
Frieze of the Prophets, Painting, 1895--1916
Italian Model, Painting, c. 1900
Male Nude Reclining, Painting, n.d.
A Male Model Standing before a Stove, Painting, late 1870s
Male Torso with Pole, Drawing, n.d.
Mountain Stream, Painting, c. 1910--12
Nude Man, Drawing, n.d.
Nude Male Standing, (Thomas E. McKeller), Drawing. 1917--20
Nude Study of Thomas E. McKeller, Painting, 1917--20
Reclining Male Nude, Drawing, n.d.
Reclining Nude Figure, Drawing, n.d.
Studies for Apollo in His Chariot with the Hours, (4 count) Drawing,
1921-- 25
Study of a Nude Model, Painting, after 1900
Study of a Male Nude Reclining against a Rock, Drawing, n.d.
Tommies Bathing, #1, Painting, 1918
Tommies Bathing, #2, Painting, 1918
Torsos of Two Male Nudes, Drawing, n.d.
Two Nude Bathers on a Wharf, Painting, 1880
Portfolio of 32 Nude Studies, Drawings, 1890--1915
Egon Schiele:
Black Nude (Self-Portrait), Gouache & Black Crayon, 1910
Crouching Male Nude (Self-Portrait), Mixed Media, 1917
The Dancer, Mixed Media, 1911
Edith Schiele Embracing Her Husband, Drawing, 1915
Embrace (Lovers), Painting, 1917
Eros, Mixed Media, 1911
The Family (Squatting Couple), Painting, 1918
Fighter, Painting with pencil, 1913
For Art and for My Loved Ones I Will Gladly Endure to the End!,
Painting with pencil, 1912
Man and Woman II (Lovers III), Painting, 1918
Male Figure, Painting with pencil, 1911
Male Nude Bending Forward, Drawing, 1918
Male Nude in Profile Facing Left (Self-Portrait), Mixed Media, 1910
Male Nude Kneeling with Raised Hands (Self-Portrait), Painting, 1910
Melancholia, Painting, 1910
Nude Self-Portrait, Drawing, 1911
Nude Self-Portrait, Grimacing, Mixed Media, 1910
Nude Self-Portrait, Squatting, Painting with pencil, 1915
Preacher, Mixed Media, 1911
Prisoner, Painting, 1912
The Prophet (Double Self-Portrait), Painting, 1911
Reclining Couple (Self-Portrait), Drawing, 1915
Reclining Male and Female Nude, Entwined, Mixed Media, 1911
Seated Male Nude, Drawing, 1915
Seated Male Nude, Mixed Media, 1910
Seated Male Nude, Painting with charcoal, 1910
Seated Male Nude, Back View, Painting with charcoal, 1910
Seated Male Nude with Lowered Head, Mixed Media, 1910
Seated Male Torso, Right Hand Outstretched, Painting with charcoal,
1910
Self-Portrait, Mixed Media, 1911
Self-Portrait in Black Drapery Masturbating, Mixed Media, 1911
Self-Portrait in Crouching Position, Gouache and Pencil, 1911
Self-Portrait, Nude, Mixed Media, 1910
Self-Portrait with Open Mouth, Drawing, 1910
Self-Portrait with Arms Spread, Mixed Media, 1911
The Self-Seers 1, Painting, 1910
Squatting Male Nude with Stocking (Self-Portrait), Mixed Media, 1911
Squatting Man (Self-Portrait), Drawing with watercolor, 1912
Standing Male Nude, Back View, Mixed Media, 1910
Standing Male Nude with Arms Crossed (Self-Portrait) 1911
Standing Male Nude with Red Loincloth, Mixed Media, 1911
Standing Man, Mixed Media, 1911
Two Men, Gouache and Pencil, 1911
Two Squatting Men (Double Self-Portrait), Painting, 1918
Jan van Scorel: Lamentation, Painting, c. 1535--40
The Shuvalov Painter (attributed): Lovemaking, Painting, c. 430 BCE
Luca Signorelli,
Companions Meeting (known by various other titles), Drawing
The Drowned Man (The Rescue), Drawing,
The Flagellation, Painting, 1480
The Last Judgment, (The Resurrection of the Dead, The Blessed, The
Damned), Painting
Madonna and Child with Shepherds, Painting
Nudes Being Bound, Drawing (chalk)
School of Pan, Painting, c. 1490
Andrea Solario: Lamentation, Painting, 1504--07
Simeon Solomon: Bridegroom and Sad Love, Drawing
Harold Speed:
Full Reclining Figure, Drawing, 1893
Three-Quarter-Length Reclining Figure, Drawing, 1983
Stanley Spenser: The Resurrection, Painting
Bartholamus Spranger: Vulcan and Maia, Painting,
Adrian Scott Stokes: Standing Figure, Drawing, before 1935
T
Bertel Thorvaldsen:
Ganymede Offering the Cup, Sculpture, 1804
Ganymede Pouring the Cup, Sculpture
Ganymede with Jupiter as the Eagle, Sculpture, 1817
Jason with the Golden Fleece, Sculpture, 1828
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo:
Nude Study of a Man, Drawing
Nude Study of a Man's Back, Drawing
Jacop Tintoretto: Atlantis, Drawing
Titian:
Bacchus and Ariadne, Painting
Adoration of the Holy Family, Painting
The Deposition, Painting
Three Ages of Man, Painting, c. 1515
St. Sebastian, Painting
Torrigiano (Pietro Torrigiano d'Antonio): St. Jerome in Penitence,
Sculpture, 16 cent.
Niccolo Tribolo: Ganymede Riding the Eagle, Sculpture
Henry Scott Tuke:
Aquamarine, Painting, 1928
August Blue, Painting, 1893
Bathing Group, Painting, 1921
The Coming of the Day, Painting, 1901
Cupid and Sea Nymphs, Painting, 1898--99
The Diver, Painting, 1898
Facing South, Painting, 1920
Gleaming Waters, Painting, 1910
July Sun, Painting, 1913
Midsummer Morning, Painting, 1907
Noonday Heat, Painting, 1902
Nude Boy on a Beach, Painting, c. 1920
On the Fringe of the Caribbean, Painting, 1924
Perseus and Andromeda, Painting, 1889
Ruby, Gold and Malachite, Painting, 1901
Seated Nude on a Beach, Painting, 1900
Study for Summer Morning, Painting, 1886--88
Summer Sun, Painting, 1923
Two Boys and a Dog, Painting, c. 1914
Under the Western Sun, Painting, 1917
Cosmino Tura: Dead Christ Supported by Angels, Painting, c. 1474
U
Unknown Greek: Apobates and Marshall from the Parthenon Frieze,
Sculpture, c. 440 BCE
Unknown Greek: (Strangford) Apollo, Sculpture, c. 490 BCE
Unknown Greek: Athletes, Painting on red cup, 5th cent. BCE
Unknown Greek: Bearded God (Zeus or Poseidon), Sculpture, c. 470 BCE
Unknown Greek: Centaur from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, Sculpture,
c. 460 BCE
Unknown Greek: Comic Actors with Strapped-On Phalluses in Satyr Dance,
c. 499 BCE
Unknown Greek: (the Farnese) Herakles, Sculpture, copy from Roman
period
Unknown Greek: Herme, Sculpture, c. 500--475 BCE
Unknown Greek: Hermes and Satyr, Painting on cup, c. 470 BCE
Unknown Greek: The Kouros Kroisos from Anavysoss, Sculpture, c. 530
BCE
Unknown Greek: Laocoon Grouping, Sculpture known from Roman copy, c.
30 BCE
Unknown Greek: Man Courting Youth, Painting on red cup, 5th cent. BCE
Unknown Greek: Meleager, Sculpture, 4th cent. BCE
Uknown Greek: Niobid, Sculpture, late 5th cent. BCE
Unknown Greek: "Paris," Sculpture, c. 340 BCE
Unknown Greek: Peleus and Atalanta Wrestling, Painting on neck vase,
c. 500 BCE
Unknown Greek: Reclining God (Herakles or Dionysus), Sculpture, c. 440
BCE
Unknown Greek: Reveler, Painting on neck amphora, c. 470 BCE
Unknown Greek: Riders and Marshall From the Parthenon Frieze,
Sculpture, C. 440 BCE
Unknown Greek: Satyr Dancing with Erection, Sculpture, 6th cent BCE
Unknown Greek: Seer from Temple of Zeus at Olmypia, c. 460 BCE
Unknown Greek: Silenus with the Baby Dionysus, Sculpture, 4th cent.
BCE
Unknown Greek: Running Man, Painting (on black vase), c. 550 BCE
Unknown Greek: Youth Finishing a Jump, Sculpture, 5th cent. BCE
Unknown Greek: Youths from Freize of Parthenon, Sculpture, C. 440 BCE
Unknown Greek: Warrior "A" (Riace Marina, Italy), c,460--440 BCE
Unknown Greek: "The Westacott Athlete," Sculpture, c. 450 BCE
Unknown Greek: Kouros, Sculpture, 520--60 BCE
Unknown Florentine: Christ Crucified, Sculpture, 15th cent.
Unknown Florentine: Hercules and Antaeus. Sculpture, late 15th cent.
Unknown Florentine: Pan Pursuing Olympus, Sculpture, 16th cent.
Unknown Hellenistic: Apollo Belvedere, Sculpture,
Unknown Hellenistic: The Borhese Warrior, Sculpture, 2nd cent. BCE
Unknown Hellenistic: Nubian Musician, Sculpture, Late 2nd to early 1st
cent. BCE
Unknown Hellenistic: Phallic Altar of Dionysus, Sculpture
Unknown Hellenistic: Prince (also known as General by unknown Roman)
Sculpture, n.d.
Unknown Hellenistic: The Wrestlers, Sculpture, Late 2nd cent. BCE
Unknown Roman: Battle Against the Galetians, Sculpture from
sarcophagus
Unknown Roman: Cosimo (the 1st) Dwarf Astride the Tortoise, Sculpture
Unknown Roman: Dionysos, the Seasons, and Other Figures, Sculpture,
220--230 BCE
Unknown Roman: Mercury Resting, Sculpture
Unknown Roman: Suicidal Celt, Sculpture, c. 220 BCE
V
Suzanne Valadon:
Adam and Eve, Painting
The Nets, Painting, 1914
Van Gogh, Vincent: Male Nude, Painting
Man Bending Over, Drawing, late 19th cent.
Man Pulling on Rope, Drawing, late 19th cent.s
Hugo van der Goes:
Adam and Eve, Painting, c. 1470/ The Fall, Painting
Anthony van Dyck: Cupid and Psyche, Painting
Jan van Eyck:
Adam and Eve, Painting, c. 1432
Crucifixion, Painting, c. 1430
Cornelius Cornelisz van Haarlem: The Corruption of Men before the
Deluge, Painting, c. 1596
Gerrit van Honthorst: St. Sebastian, Painting, c. 1623
Lucas Van Leyden: The Last Judgment, Painting
Diego Velasquez:
Mars, Painting, 1639--42
The Triumph of Bacchus, Painting
Vulcan's Forge, Painting, 1630
Domenico Veneziano: St. John in the Dessert, Painting
Horace Vernet: Mazzeppa, Painting, 1826
Jehan Georges Vibert: Narcissus, Painting, 1864
Gustav Vigeland: The Cycle of Life, Sculpture 1907--14
Angelo Visconti: Study for Male Nude, Drawing
Hans von Marees: The Golden Age, Painting, 1879
Adrian de Vries: Lazarus Entreating the Rich Man, Sculpture
W
Josef Wackerie: Neptune Fountain, Sculpture, 1935
Andy Warhol:
Golden Nude, Drawing, 1957
Torso, Paintings with ink, (12 count, 1 multiplied by 6, 1 by 4) 1977
Untitled Drawings of Male Nude Body Parts (13 count), 1956--57
Untitled Drawings of Male Nude Figure & Torsos (12 count), 1977
Lynd Ward:
[Male Nude with] Net, Print
Victim, Print
Antoine Watteau: Nude Study, Drawing, 1705--09
George Frederick Watts:
Endymion, Painting
Standing Nude with Upraised Arms, Painting, 1890
Duncan MacGregor Whyte:
Seated Figure, Drawing, 1895
Seated Figure in Profile, Drawing, 1895
Z
Jacopo Zucchi: The Golden Age, Painting
King Rundzap
> When it is said that the male nude, in contrast to the female,
> dominated Western visual culture until relatively recent times, the
> claim is not about some tally of canvases and carvings.
Well, it would have to be. What else is it about?
> It IS highly
> probable that, were such a count undertaken, men's bodies would
> outnumber women's as their subject matter.
I think it might be nice to make a bet about this. That would
motivate us to do the research. Say $10,000? I would possibly go as
high as $30,000, but I'm not sure if you're prepared to pay that if
you lose. I would take installments. (I'll even make bets with
others that he won't bet "officially", as explained below. The bets
will have to be agreed upon prior to his response). If you agree to
bet, we'll set out more specific terms (a minimum of artists to
examine from particular time periods, a minimum amount or percentage
of their work (it might be impossible to locate all of it), a
definition of what will count as nudity, and we'd probably have to
have some way of correlating data, etc.) then after specific terms are
agreed to, we'll put a minimum amount (say $1000) in escrow to
consider it "official".
> But such calculations
> would be entirely beside the point. The basic sense of such a remark
> concerns the far greater significance attached to representations of
> male nudity compared to those of female nudity.
Exactly how do you propose to enumerate significance? That's
ridiculous. Isn't significance something that individuals have in
their heads?
> It is only a slight overstatement to say that female nude imagery has
> functioned only in two ways throughout most of Western history: 1) as
> a projection of male heterosexual desire, or 2) as a token of decorous
> domesticity amongst the ruling-classes.
Where are you getting this information from, exactly? That would be a
fun thing to discuss.
> By and large, the female nude
> has been strictly confined to the private sphere.
What about all of those paintings of female nudes?
> But, on the other
> side of that wall, male nude imagery has been widely recognized as
> embodying, reinforcing, and extending a wide range of collective
> beliefs, values, practices and identifications.
Again, where is this coming from. It sounds like pomo nonsense. As
did the above.
>It has recurrently
> been found at the very center of the discourses and operations of
> religion, law, education, commerce, science, statecraft, literature
> and the arts.
How about some arguments for these claims?
> That such is the case should not come as a surprise.
That you're espousing pomo nonsense isn't a surprise. But I'd like to
hear some arguments for it.
> Our primary
> sources (some would say alibis) for nudity in public art have been
> Greco-Roman mythology and Judeo-Christian traditions. A few buxom
> furies and graceful muses notwithstanding, the former is teeming with
> unclad male dieties and heroes.
I already explained nude males in Greek art. But that's nowhere near
the bulk of art prior to the 19th Century.
[snipped pomo bullshit]
Let me know if you want to wager, or at least if you want to have a
conversation that doesn't involve droning on with unsupported pomo
bullshit, and rather involves answering questions, etc. Otherwise,
I'm not going to waste my time.
--King Rundzap
BodyThinker
listening, or if you're incapable of understanding. Or perhaps it
really isn't the question which interests you. just discursive
jousting for its own sake. Name-calling and dismissive labelling--be
it fetishist or PoMo-ist or what have you--or indeed any ad hominum
argumentation, is unworthy of serious discussion. Since my aim is to
deepen and expand my grasp of this complex subject, I cannot waste
time attempting to talk with someone evidently so ill-informed. If
you actually want to learn something these matters, I would suggest
reading any of the following:
Adler, Kathleen, and Marcia Pointon, eds. The Body Imaged: The Human
Form and Visual Culture Since the Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993.
Barkan, Leonard. Nature's Work of Art: The Body as a Medium of
Expression. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1975.
Benjamin, Andrew, ed. The Body [Journal of Philosophy and the Visual
Arts, 1993]. London: Academy Editions, 1993.
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books/British
Broadcasting Corporation, 1972.
Boardman, John. Greek Sculpture: The Archaic Period. London: Thames
and Hudson, 1993.
Boardman, John. Greek Sculpture: The Classical Period. London:
Thames and Hudson, 1985.
Bober, P. P. and R. Rubinstein. Renaissance Artists and Antique
Sculpture. London: Routledge & Kegan, 1969.
Boyd, Stephen, ed. Life Class: The Academic Male Nude 1820--1920.
Introduction by Edward Lucie-Smith. London: GMP Publishers, 1989.
Bryson, Norman. "Gericault and 'Masculinity'" in Visual Culture:
Images and Interpretations. Norman Bryson, Michael Ann Holly, Keith
Moxey, eds. Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University
Press/University Press of New England, 1994.
Byum, Caroline Walker. Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender
and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. New York: Zone, 1992.
Camille, Michael. The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in
Medieval Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Campbell, Andrew and Nathan Griffith. "The Male Body and Contemporary
Art." In The Male Body: Features, Destinies, Exposures. Edited by
Laurence Goldstein. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1994--97, 153--176+ 18 unnumbered pages of "The Male Body and
Contemporary Art: A Portfolio
Camille, Michael. The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in
Medieval Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Clifton, James and David Nirenberg. The Body of Christ in the Art of
Europe and New Spain 1150--1800. International Book Importers
Service, 1997
Comini, Allessandra. Nudes: Egon Schiele. New York: Rizzoli, 1994.
Crow, Thomas. "Observations on Style and History in French Painting
of the Male Nude, 1785-1794" in Visual Culture: Images and
Interpretations. Norman Bryson, Michael Ann Holly, Keith Moxey, eds.
Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press/University Press of
New England, 1994.
Davernport, Guy. The Drawings of Paul Cadmus. New York: Rizzoli,
1989
Davis, Whitney. "Erotic Revision in Thomas Eakin's Narratives of Male
Nudity." Art History 17 (September 1994): 301--341.
Davis, Whitney. "The Renunciation of Reaction in Girodet's Sleep of
Endymion" in Visual Culture: Images and Interpretations. Norman
Bryson, Michael Ann Holly, Keith Moxey, eds. Hanover, New Hampshire:
Wesleyan University Press/University Press of New England, 1994.
Dutton, Kenneth R. The Perfectible Body: The Western Ideal of Male
Physical Development. New York: Continuum, 1995.
Elder, George R. The Body [Volume 2 of An Encyclopedia of Archetypal
Symbolism]. Boston: Shambhala, 1996.
Enggass, Robert and Jonathan Brown. Italian and Spanish Art,
1600--1750: Sources and Documents.
Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1992.
Esten, John. John Singer Sargent: The Male Nudes. Preface by Donna
Hassler. New York: Universe/Rizzoli, 1999.
Esten, John. Thomas Eakins: The Absolute Male. New York: Universe,
2002,
Flynn, Tom. The Body in Three Dimensions. New York: Harry N.
Abrams, 1998.
Gent, Lucy and Nigel Llewellyn, eds. Renaissance Bodies: The Human
Figure in English Culture, c.1540--1660. London: Reaktion, 1990.
Golomstock, Igor. Totalitarin Art in the Soviet Union, the Thrid
Reich, Fascist Italy and the People's Republic of China. London:
Collins Harwill, 1990
Hale, W. A. The World of Rodin 1840--1917. Nederland: Time-Life
History of Art, 1969.
Hanfmann, George M. A. Classical Sculpture. London: Michael Joseph,
1967.
Hardison, Sam and George Stambolian. "The Art and Politics of the
Male Image: A Conversation Between Sam Hardison and George
Stambolian." Christopher Street, 4 (March 1980): 14--22.
Hatt, Michael. "Making a Man of Him: Masculinity and the Black Body
in Mid-Nineteenth Century American Sculpture." Oxford Art Journal 15,
no. 1 (1992): 21--35.
Hollander, Anne. Seeing Through Clothes. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1975.
Kemp, Martin and Marina Wallace. Spectacular Bodies: The Art and
Science of the Human Body from Leonardo to Now. Berkeley: University
of California Press/Hayward Gallery, 2000.
Kern, Stephen. Anatomy and Destiny: A Cultural History of the Human
Body. Indianapolis/NY: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1975.
Konig, Eberhard. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio 1571--1610. Koln:
Konemann, 1997.
.
Kirstein, Lincoln. Paul Cadmus. New York: Imago Imprint, 1984.
Lauter, Rolf, ed. Lucian Freud: Naked Portraits. Hatje Cantz, 2001.
Linder, Ines and Sigrid Schade, Silke Wenk, Garbriele Werner, eds. A
Changing Perspective: The Construction of Masculinity and Feminity in
Art and Art History. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1989
Lucie-Smith, Edward. Eroticism in Western Art. NY: Praeger, 1972.
Lullies, Richard, ed. Greek Sculpture. London: Thames and Hudson,
1957.
Martin, Fred. "To Be a Man: Searching the Met for Images of Maleness."
Artweek, 22, 4 April 1991, 3.
Mattick, Paul. "Beautiful and Sublime: Gender Totemism in the
Construction of Art." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48
(Fall 1990): 292--303.
Mirzoeff, Nicholas. Bodyscape: Art, Modernity and the Ideal Figure.
London: Routledge, 1995.
Moir, Alfred. Caravaggio. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989.
Monick, Eugene. Evil, Sexuality, and Disease in Grunewald's Body of
Christ. Dallas: Spring Publications, 1993.
Moore, Steven. God's Gym: Divine Male Bodies of the Bible. London:
Routledge, 1996.
Nigro, Salvatore S. Pontormo Drawings. New York: Harry N. Abrams,
1991.
Nochlin, Linda. The Body in Pieces: The Fragment as a Metaphor of
Modernity. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1994.
Outram, Dorinda. The Body and the French Revolution: Sex, Class, and
Political Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.
Perry, Gill and Micahel Rossington, eds. Femininity and Masculinity
in Eighteenth-century Art and Culture. Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1994.
Pollitt, J. J. The Art of Ancient Greece, Sources and Documents.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965
Pollitt, J. J. Art and Experience in Classical Greece. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1972.
Porter, James I. Constructions of the Classical Body. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1998.
Potts, Alex. Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art
History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
Richter, Simon. Lacoon's Body and the Aesthetics of Pain:
Winckelmann, Lessing, Herder, Moritz, Goethe. Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1992.
Rousselle, Aline. Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity.
Felicia Pheasant, translator. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1983, 1988
Saslow, James M. Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in
the Visual Arts. New York: Viking Press, 1998.
Sylvester, David. Francis Bacon: The Human Body. Berkeley:
University of California/Hayward Gallery, 1998.
Solomon-Godeau, Abigail. Male Trouble: A Crisis in Representation.
New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997.\
Solomon-Godeau Abigail and Paul Smith, bell hooks, Michael Taussig,
Leo Bersani. "Masculinity and Representation" essays in chapter 2 of
Constructing Masculinity edited by Maurice Berger, Brian Wallis, and
Simon Watson. New York: Routledge, 1995, 69--126.
Steinberg, Leo. The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in
Modern Oblivion. New York: Pantheon, 1983.
Stephenson, Andrew. Visualizing Masculinities. London: Tate Gallery,
1992.
Stewart. Andrew. Art, Desire and the Body in Ancient Greece.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Stewart, Andrew. Greek Sculpture: An Exploration, 2 vols. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1990.
Talvacchia, Bette. Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance
Culture. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Theweleit, Klaus. Male Fantasies, Vol 1: Women, Floods, Bodies,
History. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1987.
Theweleit, Klaus. Male Fantasies, Vol 2: Male Bodies: Psychoanalizing
the White Terror. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1989.
Threadgold, Terry and Anne Cranny-Francis, eds. Feminine, Masculine
and Representation. Sidney: Allen & Unwin, 1990.
Walters, Margaret. The Male Nude: A New Perspective. Harmondsworth:
Penguin,
1979.
Weiermair, Peter, ed. Ideal and Reality: The Image of the Body in
20th-Century Art from Bonnard to Warhol. Frankfurt: Edition Stemmle,
1999.
King Rundzap
> These exchanges are going nowhere.
And why was I so sure that you wouldn't take my bet . . . can it be
that you couldn't use $10,000? Or do you know that you're likely to
lose, or at least you have strong doubts that you'd win. Betting in
that way is useful, or at least proposing it is, to discover whether
someone is talking out of their ass or whether they're serious about
the claims they're making, and confident that they are correct. I'm
not talking out of my ass, and I'm confident that I am correct. Thus
I'm seriously willing to bet $10,000 on it. I'm not interested in a
talking out of your ass discussion. If you're so sure that you're
correct, put something substantial behind the claim.
> I can't tell if you're simply not
> listening, or if you're incapable of understanding.
You're not even answering any questions or addressing any points I'm
bringing up. And I'm not listening?
> Or perhaps it
> really isn't the question which interests you. just discursive
> jousting for its own sake.
I know a lot of things you're saying are wrong. I'm willing to put
$10,000 down on it, even. What are you willing to put up to show that
you're not just bullshitting?
> Name-calling and dismissive labelling--be
> it fetishist or PoMo-ist or what have you--or indeed any ad hominum
> argumentation, is unworthy of serious discussion.
It's spelled ad hominem. I'd bet on that, too, because I know I'm
right.
> Since my aim is to
> deepen and expand my grasp of this complex subject, I cannot waste
> time attempting to talk with someone evidently so ill-informed.
Yeah, that's why I'm willing to give you $10,000 if I'm wrong. lol.
You just happen to not be interested in gaining an extra $10,000 while
you learn more about a complex subject you're interested in. Right.
> If you actually want to learn something these matters, I would suggest
> reading any of the following:
That's great that you know what a bibliography is. Now, let's do some
real research so you can make some money. How about it?
--King Rundzap
bodyt...@yahoo.com
mythology and Judeo-Christian traditions. A few buxom furies and
graceful muses notwithstanding, the former is teeming with unclad male
is the central emblem of Christianity.... Down the ages, the Church
supplied lots of other male exemplars of 'holy nakedness,"
KR appears oblivious to the continuous and unsurpassed admiration and
authority enjoyed by these two fountainheads of Western iconography.
With respect to ancient Grecian and Latin statuary and murals of the
male nude, s/he implies that their influence was somehow neutralized
with the fall of Rome. Nothing could be further from the truth. The
imagery of antiquity has left an indelible imprint on the great bulk of
Western art. Most notably, it lay at the heart of the florescence of
painting and sculpture which burst into bloom during the southern
European Renaissance and the Neo-classical movement centered in France.
Uncovered male flesh was visible everywhere in the art of these
epochs. In addition to these deliberate revivals, reflections of
Greco-Roman archetypes are also easily observable in the the male nudes
of 15th century Germany, the Mannerists, the Baroque period, Rubens,
Caravaggio and other 17th century Realists, even some of the Romantics
(William Blake and Gericault, for instance). Lord Frederick Leighton's
bronzes of male nudes represent recreations of the Greek hero. Van
Heemskerck's "Triumph of the Bibulous Silenus" and Caracci's
"Procession of Bacchantes, Satyrs and Cupids" present a virtual
catologue of male nude types bequeathed to the West from the classical
Golden Age. (It might be said that Philip Evergood's etching "Centaurs
and Men" did much the same in our day.)
Artists who deviated from the representational practices of antiquity,
would still frequently draw inspiration from its mythology. Edward
Burne-Jones, for instance, brought together designs reminiscent of
Medieval church windows with pre-Christian legends starring many
deities and adventurers unencumbered by clothing. The profusion of
lithe and sinewy fellows found in Jean Delville's "The School of Plato"
probably epitomizes such an assimilative and adaptive strategy. One
could hardly imagine a more fantastically inventive mix of the
classical and the Christian. Nor a more nakedly male one. More
recently, not a few of the creations of Oskar Kokoschka, Giorgio de
Chirico, Picasso, Dali, and Eisenstein have taken up and recast antique
male nude idols. The countless paintings and drawings of naked men by
Paul Cadmus and Duncan Grant could fairly be viewed as variations on an
Adonisian theme. The same might be said of Leon Bakst's watercolors of
Nijinsky as Serge Diaghilev's Faun, and the many studies of the male
nude by John Singer Sargent. On the other hand, Reginald Marsh and
Thomas Hart Benton appear to have been more partial to Apollonian
themes when serving up men's bodies.
The blessings of the Greek gods were often invoked in the picturesque
compositions of early Romantic photographers, such as those of Wilhelm
von Gloeden or Fred Holland Day. The Thomas Eakins Circle also seems
to have been enchanted by visions of Arcadia. Unbashful versions of
Narcissus, Bacchus and Dionysus cavort or traipse through their idyllic
pictures. Modernist photographers, such as Minor White, Imogen
Cunningham, and George Platt Lynes, likewise were quickened by visions
of Greek gynmists and Roman soldiers stripped of all but their glory.
And Delmas Howe, a contemporary painter of middle-aged steer wranglers
and youthful broncobusters, renders his figures as nude demigods with
names plucked from Greek epics and Roman lore.
There are echoes of the ancients in the paintings of other artists
working today as well, including Luis Caballero, Roberto Marquez, and
Michael Leonard. The same could be said of contemporary photographers
such as Duane Michals, Roberto Rincon, and Tony Butcher. A good deal
of the photography and films connected with the naturist and healthful
living campaigns of Germany during the first half of the 20th century,
as well as with the cult of the muscular physique and Hollywood
"male-action" spectacles in the US during the last half, owe much to
Greco-Roman imagery. Obviously nudism, cinematic "hunks", and
bodybuilding continue as cultural forces to this day. And all these
influences, plus others besides, insinuate their way into advertising.
If Madison Avenue were to be believed, one would have to conclude that
the primary consumers of men's underwear and toiletries are naked
Olympians.
If one may judge from their output, most artists in the West were eager
to believe that superhuman beings prefer to go about without clothing.
At least the male ones do. The anthropomorphized gods and apothesized
heroes of the classical and neo-classical periods, as well as the
divinized Jesus and canonized saints of church-endorsed art, are time
and again presented naked. Their disregard for covering up seems
especially conspicuous when rescuing, redeeming, interceding or
otherwise acting on behalf of us mere mortals. Paintings and sculpture
from ancient, medieval and modern times are remarkably alike in this
regard. Perhaps one major exception ought to be noted. Depictions of
the male nudity essential to the central image of Christianity, the
Crucifixion, are hardly ever reminiscent of either the iconography or
the mythology of ancient Greece and Rome. Even so, to my knowledge, the
many other similarities between the male nude imagery of these two
wellsprings of Western art have been largely passed over.
For this reason, I offer the following list of possible parallels. The
list might serve as a starting-point for additional comparisons and
further consideration. The affinity between Greco-Roman antiquity
(together with its modern heirs) and Christian traditions (including
those appropriated from Judaism) may be recognizable in purely visual
terms. Such would pertain, for instance, if the body of an ecstatic
St. Sebastian were represented as exhibiting qualities comparable to
those of, say, an inebriated Bacchus. Moreover, the similarity may be
indicative, involving some agreement as to meanings, themes or
narratives. One might argue, for example, that the pictorial nakedness
of a Hercules and a Samson symbolizes a roughly equivalent fortitude of
spirit or commitment to higher purposes.
Adonis-Pre-lapsarian Adam, usually at the point of creation or just
prior to the Fall.
Antinous exalted by Hadrian-St. John the Baptist, especially when
communing with God in the desert, or as initiator of Jesus' "public
ministry";
Apollo-pre-crowned David, as shepherd summoned by Saul, preparing
to confront/victorious over Goliath, or as royal intimate of Jonathan;
the resurrected Christ, standing before the open tomb or manifesting to
his disciples;
Bacchus or Dionysus--St. Sebastian, just before or during martyrdom;
Eros/Cupid--Cherub[um], both as bearers of innocent playfulness and
tender passion;
Hercules--Samson;
Laocoon--the scourged Christ, "Ecce Homo" or Man of Sorrows;
Mars or Heroic Warrior--Michael the Archangel;
Marsyas--St. Batholomew, in agony while being killed
Mercury--the Angel Gabriel;
Prometheus--Martyr (think, for example, of Pontormo's tableau showing
tiers of tethered saints);
Sage, Seer, Wise One--Evangelist or Disciple (Correggio's fresco of the
Apostles Thomas and James, for instance);
Silenus--St. Peter;
Winged Spirits of Hellenic Rome--Seraphum
Zeus or Jupiter-Yahweh, God the Creator, Heavenly Father, First
Person of the Holy Trinity
Correlations might also be made between Greek satyrs and Christian
devils, as well as between the grotesques of antique art (dwarfs, the
diseased and the deformed) and the damned on the Day of Judgment, or
Death personified in ecclesiastical art. Along similar lines, the
Vanquished (Dying Gaul, Fallen Celt, Cowering Persian, etc) may
correspond to Abel slain by his brother, or the Man on the Road to
Jericho, either just after being robbed and beaten, or while being
aided by the Good Samaritan. No doubt, other correspondences might be
noticeable over and above those listed here.
The enormous impact of the Christian religion on Western societies
cannot be overstated. It has been far-reaching and remains ongoing.
Yet KR simply ignores Church-sponsored art when referring to the nude.
It's easy to see why. The female nude is all but absent from the
religious art of the West. Such an absence would be impossible to
square with her/his claim that the male nude has been comparatively
unimportant to our civilization.
A man "stripped of his garments" is the primary emblem of Christianity.
Male nude iconography is more important to the faith founded on Jesus
than to any other world religion. Conceivably, it is more important to
the Church than to any other institution. Along with representations of
a fully-clothed Mary (the mother of Jesus) portrayals of naked men
dominate Christian art.
At the risk of stating the obvious, let's begin by addressing the
question "Whose naked body?" First and foremost there are, of course,
the countless objects depicting Jesus himself--as the carpenter's son
from Nazareth and/or as the salvific Son of God. Understandably, among
these are a multitude of crosses bearing the purported likeness of his
disrobed body. However, even more than the crucifixion itself, events
leading up to and immediately following his execution have figured as
favorite scenes and motifs within Christian art. These include a
[near-]naked Jesus being beaten on orders from Pilate and then
presented to "the mob" (frequently entitled Scourging at the Pillar or
Ecce Homo or Man of Sorrows); his being undressed by Roman soldiers
upon reaching Golgotha (Divestment); the hoisting of the cross bearing
his body (Elevation); the removal of his corpse from the cross
(Descent, Deposition); grieving over his corpse by disciples
(Lamentation), or by his mother (Pieta), or by angels
(Attended/Ministered to by...); his burial (Entombment); his
resurrection (Victory over Death); and his exaltation with "the Father"
(Throne of Grace). Aside from his infancy and death, apparently the
only other time Christian artists imagined Jesus without clothing was
during his initiation into "public ministry" at the hand of John the
Baptist.
>From stories contained in what Christians call "the Old Testament,"
artists focused on the bared bodies of Adam, Abel (and sometimes Cain),
Isaac when about to be sacrificed, Samson, and David-- especially in
relation to his defeat of Goliath and his affair with Bathsheba. It is
perhaps odd that ostensibly incorporeal angels also often appear in
Christian art with considerable flesh exposed. This seems especially
true of the infantalized or "fallen" varieties. From specifically
Christian scriptures and traditions, we are presented with the
unclothed bodies of martyrs (like St. Bartholomew) and ascetics (like
St. Jerome), the wilderness-dwelling John the Baptist, and the damned
(and occasionally the blessed) on the Day of Judgment. Intriguingly,
Christian artists have also lavished attention on the obscure St.
Sebastian.
Before proceeding, a word of clarification may be in order. By
"Christian art" I mostly have in mind paintings and statues produced
during the Middle Ages and the Reformation/Counter-Reformation, and
their successors down through the centuries to our own time. For the
most part, these objects have been created under the auspices of
ecclesiastical authorities and used for devotional purposes both
private and public. Art arising out of the "baptizing" of paganism
which occurred during the Renaissance (especially in Mediterranean
lands), under the influence of Neo-Platonic humanism, strikes me as
having much more in common with the creations of antiquity than with
other church-endorsed pieces. As such, the artistic output of this
period incorporates much of the classism and sexism inherent to
Greco-Roman traditions. Even so, to the extent that the works of even
such champions of male physicality as Michelangelo and Signorelli were
affected by Christian doctrine and practice, they heeded the call of
patriarchy hardly at all.
Patriarchy and "phallus" (as the supreme symbol of hegemonic
masculinity) are all about power. They signify and enact that species
of power which pretends to superiority in relation to others, mastery
in every pursuit, triumph over every adversity and every adversary.
"Naturally" accompanying such supremacy are all the prerogatives and
prestige of "being a man." Rooted in fundamental teachings and
observances, "the male body" as seen by Christian image-makers
luxuriates in powerlessness. It does so preeminently when naked.
Christian art paradoxically glorifies the body brought low. Many times
it goes so far as to revel in the "vileness" of human material
constitution.
In his famous study of the nude in art, Kenneth Clark categorizes most
Christian imagery under the rubric "Pathos." Otherwise, he relegates it
to the "Alternative Convention"--an alternative, that is, to classical
and classically inspired representations of nudity. Margaret Walters
agrees, bluntly putting it this way: "In Christian art, the naked body
is a symbol not of pride but of pathos. To be naked is to be
vulnerable, sexually self-conscious and guilty. Images of suffering,
humiliation and death...are central in Christianity." These are
qualities and conditions that do not square well with the assumption or
exercise of control over others. It is for this reason, that whenever
heeding hegemonic masculinity and male supremacy--as they often
do--Christian artists have positively heaped men's bodies with
clothing. One will find more voluminous garments, royal raiment,
priestly vestments, uniforms, costumes, rags and finery of all sorts in
churchly-motivated art than probably in any other arena of
representation.
The obverse of these observations may be equally surprising. They could
help explain how it is that, when men do show up naked in Christian
imagery, they have been known to facilitate spiritual and ethical ends.
There can be little doubt that there have been countless excesses of
Christian piety which frequently assume masochistic form. This fact is
abundantly reflected in Christian art. But it cannot be denied that
down through the ages, the oppressed, the tyrannized, the unjustly
treated have time and again identified with, and found strength to
endure/resist, in portrayals of that naked god-man on the cross. While
there are no all-or-nothing inferences that legitimately can be drawn,
much the same applies to all those naked saints and Hebrew heroes.
Divested of their regalia, men's bodies in Christian art cannot avoid
calling into question patriarchy as the sole standard for/of power. It
may also help to explain why-repeatedly and, to this
"nonbeliever." amazingly--"the naked Christian" can be emotionally
moving, sensually stimulating, and, for some at least, erotically
arousing.
Artists dealing with worldly matters, and independent of ecclesiastical
patronage, have at intervals been guided by certain Christian-inspired
strategies for unwrapping male flesh. Such influence is evident, for
instance, in the many confessional self-portraits of Egon Schiele, as
well as in Daumier's weary wrestlers, Cezanne's metaphysical
bathers, and the bony bodies of young men exposed by Wilhelm
Lehmbruck's in his statuary. Even some of the sculpture of Rodin
bear the marks of a Christian sensibility-his "Three Shades," for
instance. With hang-dog expressions and defenseless bodies, a number
of famous and infamous men sat for Alice Neel. Her nude portraits of
them are recollective of the Church's portrayal of some of its
persecuted and (therefore?) canonized charter members.
bodyt...@yahoo.com
determined by laying bets on it. S/he appears to go so far as to judge
the sincerity with which one holds to an opinion, and perhaps even the
reasonableness of that opinion, as measurable in terms of one's
willingness to "play" for hard cash. And KR evidently likes to "play"
for amounts in the tens of thousands of dollars, no less. Good thing
not many people share such a fantastic view. I shudder to think how
impoverished our culture would be had it been so. One of the surest
bets might well be this: when sane folk contemplate advancements in
science and technology, social and political progress, developments in
the humanities and fine arts, spiritual and emotional enrichment, even
material prosperity, spots like Monte Carlo and Las Vegas do not leap
to mind as likely intellectual incubators
Although many people may enjoy looking at depictions of the male body,
the evidence sadly suggests that few are inclined to think or talk
about the subject. Given this general disinclination, any suggestion
that those exceptional researchers and theorists who do focus on the
representation of the male body are motivated by a chance to hit the
jackpot is surely far-fetched. Book publishing furnishes a primary
object-lesson about the current situation. Not a few hardcover titles
relating to female body-image and imagery have been reissued as
mass-market paperbacks. A number of these have moved on to achieve
best-seller status. By contrast, it's considered quite a lucky break
if manuscripts concerning the male body ever see the light of day. Of
the small number which do get published (mostly by academic presses),
hardly any ever make it into trade soft-cover editions. To date, none
have scored pocket book deals.
Fortunately, the philosopher Susan Bordo's hardcover book about the
male body was republished by a major firm as a full-sized quality
paperback. And this collection of essays did enjoy some measure of
commercial success. But, compared to her equally fine book about
women's bodies, it didn't do nearly as well. And it ended up in the
remainder bins of the large retail chains in short order. And then
there's the case of Edward Lucie-Smith. Books by this esteemed art
authority are unusual for having the benefit of advertising campaigns
which--at times--aim at the general reading public. It is, therefore,
particularly noteworthy that Lucie-Smith has limited himself to
providing sketchy overviews or introductions for small-circulation
monographs about the male figure. He's also penned prefaces for one
or two coffee-table albums featuring naked men in photos or paintings.
These shorter writings, taken together with his own portfolio of fine
art photography (Flesh and Stone), make it obvious that Lucie-Smith is
fascinated by the subject. Who could doubt that this business-savvy
writer would seize upon any opportunity to bring out an in-depth
analysis of male nude artwork? It's just that the marketplace is
plainly inhospitable to such undertakings. And he knows it.
Book-promotional agencies are well aware that rigorous thought about
the delivery of men's bodies in visual culture isn't about to pay off
in big dividends anytime soon.
I confess that the wager tossed out by KR registered with me at first
as nothing but a facetious gesture. It sounded like a tongue-in-cheek
proposition, best passed over lest the dialogue become sidetracked
before it really got going. At the time I was laboring under the
misconception that s/he was serious about discussing male nude imagery.
Soon enough, however, what most interested KR grew transparent--a
chance for some "action." To that end, s/he became caught up in
attempts to goad me into "playing" against her/him. KR refused to
address the subject. While clearly disagreeing with me, scant effort
was made to argue alternative explanations to any of those I'd put
forth. Instead, rather like some petulant child, s/he kept reciting
what amounted to "bet-chya can't prove it, bet-chya can't prove it."
"Nyeh, nyeh, nyeh-NYEH, nyeh!" How silly. Obviously, it mattered not
one wit to KR that s/he was itching to bet on something which was
expressly for me "entirely beside the point." Fixation will do that to
a person.
>From a mental health standpoint, it is naturally worrisome whenever
anyone feels compelled to shuffle learning situations for gambling
ones. If KR is so afflicted, the hocus-pocus s/he tried to pull in our
little discussion probably hinders much else in her/his social
intercourse. Be that as it may, the cultural analyst in me must also
wonder if KR was trying to insinuate something about the value of
holding such a discussion in the first place. "Talking about the male
body in art is just soooo exceedingly unimportant that, for the
privilege of my taking part, you'd best be prepared to at least 'make
it interesting.'" In other words, I'll condescend to talk about
this subject only if you're willing to raise the stakes relative to
the outcome. Do you sense a negativity of this sort skulking beneath
KR's call for bets? Now, if that's the situation, such
trivializing the subject wouldn't be the least bit unusual. In fact, it
would be pretty much par for the course.
Electric Nachos
bodyt...@yahoo.com wrote in message
<1106750984.1...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>...
>Our primary sources...for nudity in public art have been Greco-Roman
>mythology and Judeo-Christian traditions.
Sorry - Nudity in public art started waaaaaaaay before that!!!!!!
bodyt...@yahoo.com
body were accorded superior importance prior to the Victorian era. I
wasn't pretending to have scooped some big story in pointing out that
fact. Cultural history and art studies have long recognized that, at
least up until the 19th century, male nude imagery exerted a commanding
presence in Western civilization. Since our earliest recorded times
Occidental societies have held high the male figure while curtaining
off its female counterpart, relegating it to secluded or esoteric
zones--if not to the taboo. [Pre-historic times may well have been a
different matter; witness the female idols dated to the late
Aurignacian period.]
With very few exceptions, artwork which brought to the fore the male
body was created by male practitioners at the behest of men of
affluence and prerogative, either individually as private benefactors
or collectively within sponsoring institutions. In all phases of its
production and reception, such works have been politically and
culturally positioned to demonstrate and pass along a vast array of
ideas and ideals favored by the dominant classes. It is precisely
because the female nude became closely identified with the erotic that
its referents were strictly circumscribed. The same men who paid for
public male nudes determined that artwork focusing on the female body
properly belonged "behind the scenes." Such pieces were judged
"not fit for mixed company." Thus, rarely was female nude imagery
authorized to signify "the big stuff"-be that intellectual,
legal, governmental, financial, educational, ethical, and/or religious.
Allowed a larger frame of reference, even the most obviously sexual
men could be portrayed nude and still support multiple meanings.
(Since KR seemed unaware that such was the case, I offered certain
readings which bear it out. You'll note that s/he cited no sources
which might support her/his grumbling to the contrary. Instead of
being appreciative of my efforts on her/his behalf-which included
sorting through my 35 + page bibliography on the subject to select a
handful of titles with hopefully broad appeal--KR sneered at them.)
It would seem that KR is trapped in something of a time warp, wherein
the Modernist equation of "the nude" with "the female figure"
is taken for granted. S/he thus interprets the story of Western art
anachronistically. The historical novelty of unrestricted access to,
and widespread familiarity with, the unclothed female figure is lost on
him/her. If alive when my own favorite depictions of women's bodies
were first sold and assigned a place, I wouldn't have had a prayer of
ever getting to see any of them. Most likely KR, in the company of the
great majority (if not all) of those reading these thoughts, would have
been in the same boat. Rembrandt's "Bathsheba with King David's
Letter," for example, never fails to leave me spellbound. But, until
comparatively recent times, it was reserved for very few eyes indeed.
Like many other art lovers today, the "Nude Maja" by Goya and the
"Rokeby Venus" by Valasquez engage me utterly whenever viewed.
However, it's well-established that these paintings hung together for
a long while in the private chambers of Don Manuel de Godoy, arguably
the most powerful man in Spain at the time. They were enjoyed by him
and his hand-picked cronies in a manner not unlike "cheesecake"
pin-ups today, but with the added advantage of validating their
viewers' high station in society.
Perhaps we need to remind ourselves every now and then that, as luxury
items, a Venus or a Maja and any of their ilk have been pricey
commodities. Until the rise to power of men in business and the
professions during the 19th century, only the gentry could afford such
stay-at-home indulgences. Among the Don's cohorts, you surely would
not have found many from the middle class, let alone the common folk.
How often a work of art can be seen, and by what number of people,
remains one of the best measures of its overall influence. Ideology
and economics conspired to undermine the social impact of nearly all
female nude imagery prior to the triumph of capitalism. Such is the
case even for those pre-19th century works generally regarded today as
masterpieces; those by Titian or Ingres, for example. Other personal
favorites of mine, such as Vestier's "Rosalie Duthe`" Courbet's
"Sleepers," and Ruben's "Helene Fourment in Fur Robes" also
would have been beyond the reach of the great majority for much the
same reasons.
Upon first catching sight of Canova's "Pauline Borghese as Venus
Victorious," its lustrous and seemingly supple marble, to say nothing
of its fluently sensuous lines, took my breath away. I'd be surprised
if the piece doesn't similarly stir other visitors to today's
Bourghese Gallery in Rome. However, it is a matter of record that, at
the time of its creation, the Emperor Napoleon's sister (whose
likeness it represents) permitted only her closet friends and family
members to view the "portrait." And then, only during the darker
hours by lantern light! English art historian Tom Flynn has said of
this sculpture: "A contemporary figure portrayed in such a revealing
pose would have been scandalous in public. " That's hitting the
nail on the head: scandalous because public. Meanwhile the general
populace grew well-acquainted with innumerable portrayals of The Word
Made Flesh and saintly ascetics laid bare in churches both humble and
grand. Nor were they strangers to the many stripped-down adventurers,
conquerors, and demigods standing guard outside public buildings, or
erected at street intersections and in town squares or parks, for the
purpose of fortifying civic pride.
bodyt...@yahoo.com
disingenuous in her/his insistence on the equation of "dominance" with
"greater numbers." Not only does the word itself generally refer to
preeminent influence and advantage--and then only consequently, if at
all, to majority status--but when first taking up the topic KR
her/himself employs a variant of the term in precisely such a manner:
"It was only recently that women began having a more dominant public
What might "dominant" mean in this citation? Is KR suggesting that
recently the number of women has surpassed that of men? "Voice" here
is, of course, a figure of speech. It probably signifies something
along the lines of women's combined wishes, opinions, choices, etc.
So, on second thought, should we suppose instead KR is arguing that the
sum total of the contents of this "voice,"--one belonging to a
preexisting female majority population--now outweighs all the bits
which collectively go into the "voice" of men? Or, still taking into
account the rather odd phrasing of KR's sentence, is it that women,
whose numbers had already outranked those of men, and whose "voice"
already consisted of a larger volume of elements, have recently stirred
even more ingredients into this "voice" of theirs. None of these
interpretations are likely correct. And there's a very simple
explanation why that is so.
The reason the above interpretations miss the mark has to do with
reading "dominant" in quantitative instead of qualitative terms. If we
shift perspectives accordingly, the most probable inference is that KR
wants to say something about the nature of women's influence--the force
of women's "voice" (so to speak)--in the public arena. The point then
being made would relate to the features, and perhaps the spirit, which
characterize women's collective power to affect the larger culture.
Such influence could be understood as either persuasive or coercive, or
some combination of the two. If "dominant" is heard thus, it sounds as
if KR is noting that women's attitudes, interests and/or expertise
carries greater weight, or commands greater attention, or exerts
greater authority, within society as a whole than in the past. It would
have nothing to do with greater numbers (except, again, perhaps
circumstantially).
If KR's use of "dominant" is taken to be qualitative rather than
quantitative, it would be consistent with common language practice. In
governmental matters, for instance, to say that such and such group
"dominates" politically is to presuppose that said group does not
equate with the bulk of subjects or citizens. Except in pseudo-Marxist
fantasies about dictatorship by the masses, dominance over the many by
the few is the established way of state rule. From totalitarianism,
through monarchy or aristocracy, to representative republicanism, some
elite holds the reins of power. Historically, the governed have always
far outnumbered the governing.
In the cultural realm the situation is similar. Often it is asserted,
for instance, that Jewish writers and thinkers are a (the?) dominant
force in the humanities. True or not, such a statement certainly does
not speak of Jews as making up more than half of all liberal arts
practioners. In fact, it typically implies the opposite: despite
(presumably) small numbers, they (supposedly) prevail. The reputed
dominant standing of Black entertainers, Quaker peace activists, German
linguists, Evangelical Protestant broadcasters, Russian ballerinas,
Jungian folklorists, Middle Eastern petrochemists, gay playwrights,
French theoriticians, female comedians, Unitarian social reformers,
Chinese musicians, (or what-have-you) hardly means that any of these
groupings comprise the majority within their respective fields. Since
KR refers to "patriarchy," s/he is probably aware that it means "male
dominance." Irrespective of their attitude toward the subject, I know
of no interpreter of this form of social organization who argues that
it depends upon greater numbers of men relative to the numbers of
women.
So, if KR hoped that her/his own remarks would to be appreciated as
descriptive, not computational, why the blind spot in identifying my
own line of reasoning as applying to the qualitative, not the
quantitative? Even if it were possible, to add up all works of art
featuring naked men and comparing the ensuing sum with the total number
of artworks featuring naked women would tell us nothing about the
significance of either. If a similar tally were to reveal that
paintings of bowls of fruit, and/or vases a flowers, outnumber the
count for all painted human figures, would KR have declared that
still-lifes obviously have had a greater impact on Western visual
culture? This species of argument is absurd. And placing bets on it
makes it no less so. My hunch is that KR, like so many others, simply
wanted to avoid discussing the meanings and influence of male nude
imagery in Western civilization. And thus s/he tried to throw the
discussion off the track, lead us on a merry chase, as far away as
possible from a topic about which s/he evidently knows very little.
bodyt...@yahoo.com
once-cloistered female nude, let's turn to that most orthodox
summaries of art studies, The Encyclopedia of World Art (NY:
McGraw-Hill, 1972): "[A]lmost all art collections, even those royal
collections which were objects of national pride, were private in
character, and public access to them was difficult. . . .Artists,
scholars, and distinguished visitors might be admitted to a collection,
but only by virtue of the generosity of its owner, on invitation or by
request. . . .Distinguishing between the monarchy and the modern nation
state, rulers ceded their collections to the latter. The foundation of
public museums is the single most important phenomenon that
characterizes the history of art during the 19th century." (Luigi
Salerno et alia, Volume 10, p. 390)
One of the principal ways the freshly prosperous middle class showed
off its clout was through donations to public endowments and
organizations. Foremost among these were national and municipal
museums. Unlike the off-limits amassing of artworks carried out by the
high-born of previous generations, the administrators of 19th century
museums established open-door policies. As establishments of humane
learning and civilized manners, they welcomed all "decent" members
of the body politic. While upper middle class women might assume a
more visible role in promoting these cultural repositories and places
of exhibition, it was their adult male relatives who controlled the
purse strings. And these men had learned, amongst themselves, to
appreciate the finer points of canvases and carvings which undressed
the prettier representatives of "the weaker vessel."
Consequently, female nudes were sanctioned for placement along with
landscapes, portraits, still-lifes, and other reputable subjects. Thus
began the mass exodus of nudes from the residential collections of the
aristocracy to the halls patronized by the newly moneyed middle class.
Monarchs now subject to constitutional forms of government manifest
their good will through contributions from their own caches of framed
and base-supported playmates. Insecure titled gentlemen sold off
considerable quantities of their arty assets. For a price, they all
came: ladies at their toilet, lounging mistresses, nymphs, muses,
goddesses, sorceresses, servant girls, damsels-in-distress, maharanis
and sultanas, models of Vanity, and so on and so forth. Around the
same time galleries and salons were launched, funded by the well-to-do
of this same class. This prompted contemporary artists to come up with
their own versions of female nakedness (which is not to deny the
periodic wrangling over what qualified as "respectable" female
nakedness). The paradigmatic switch from the male to the female nude
was in full swing, and it kept up till the advent of Abstractionism.
.
But the story doesn't end there. Despite relocation to surroundings
above reproach, portrayals of naked women never managed to entirely
shed the suspicion of carnality. No matter how high-sounding the
allegorical titles with which they were tagged, the meanings attached
to female nudes still reflected, to a great degree, the goings-on of
the boudoir, if not the brothel. Thus, even the most prominent female
nudes in Western art failed to realize the broad historical influence
exerted by the naked men depicted anew in the "high art" of each
passing century.
First and foremost, there is the potent statuary of antiquity. It is
so numerous that only a small sampling can be named here. From ancient
Greece and Hellenic Rome (in no particular order), we have inherited
the momentous Korai, especially from the Kleobis-Biton group (Delphi),
from Tenca, and from the Akropolis of Athens; the Warrior from Riaco;
the Apollo carvings which have been designated as "Belvedere" and
"Piombino"; the God of the Sea" (Poseidon) found off of Cape
Artemission; Praxitles' "Hermes"; Roman copies of the Apollo
Sauroktonous, the Praying Boy, Diadumenos, the Marsyas figure from the
Athena and Marsyas group, the Resting Boxer, (the Farnese) Hercules,
the Apoxyomenous associated with Ephesos and with Rome, the Athlete
(recovered from the sea off Antikythera), the "Barberini Faun," and
the Wrestlers; the Parthenon's marble reliefs as well as the Illissus
figure; frescos of a "Banquet Scene" from the fifth century BCE and of
"Achilles and Chiron," the group known as "Castor and Pollux," Cosimo
I's dwarf, the ithypallic fountain and tripod satyr bowl along with the
fresco of the weighing phallus and the Dancing Faun statue unearthed at
Pompeii; the Belvedere Antinous and the famous and massive Torso
fragment, Apollo with Lyre; and the many male nudes carved into the
Antoninus-Pius Column in Rome. Although their influence wasn't as
great as that of classical sculpture, Greek vase paintings depicting
nude athletes and revelers deserve mention as well.
Next in importance is Michelangelo: his Sistine Chapel paintings of
the "Creation of Adam," the "Last Judgment," and the various Ignudi,
his sculpture of the so-called Rebellious and Dying Slaves, his
perfectly naked "Risen Christ" in the Sana Maria sopra Minerva of Rome,
"Bacchus," "Victory," each of the "Pieta" of Florence and Rome, his
"Battle of the Centaurs," and, of course the "David." Among the
illustrious company off neo-classical masters, Jacques Louis David has
held onto the highest honors. In terms of name recognition, he
probably ranks second only to Michelangelo as far as investors in the
treasury of male nude imagery. The nudes which appear in his
"Intervention of the Sabines" and "Leonidas at Thermoplylae" are
paragons of their type. And the naked men in some of his smaller
works, notably "Paris and Helen," "Marat Assassinated," and the oddly
eerie "Death of Barra," have exerted more subtle, but no less stable
effects.
Then there's Lorenzo Maitani's carvings of male nudes (human as well as
demonic) in the Hell relief together with Luca Signorelli's paintings
of the Day of Judgment (both at Orvieto Cathedral), Leonardo da Vinci's
peerless drawing of "Vitruvian Man," Grunewald's stunning Isenheim
alterpiece, Jacques Dubroecq's "Dead Christ" relief, Durer's early 16th
century engraving of Apollo as the sun god (with Diana dimming in the
background) and his painting of "Christ as the Man of Sorrows,"
Donatello's "David" (and Andrea del Verrocchio's treatment of the same
subject shortly thereafter), Antonio de Pollaiulo's "Hercules"
paintings (with Antaes or the Hydra) and his engraving of "The Battle
of the Nudes," Perugiono's "Apollo and Marsyas," and "St. Sebastian,"
Titian's "The Three Ages of Man" and "St. Sebastian," Giambologna's
"Mercury," Botticelli's "[nude] Mars [paired up with a fully clothed]
Venus " Celini's (spiralingly tressed and totally nude) Crucifix and
his "Perseus," Caravaggio's "The Flagellation" and "The Entombment,"
Rosso Fiorentiono's biblically-themed paintings (probably the "Dead
Christ Ministered to by Angels" in particular), El Greco's "Laocoon"
and "Christ on the Cross," (as well as the completely naked statue of
the Risen Christ from his workshop) Ruben's "Prometheus Bound" and
"Descent from the Cross," Bernini's David and Daniel statues,
Valasquez's "Mars," and "Vulcan's Forge."
Even after the female nude had really taken off, its male counterpart
often carried greater weight--as can be witnessed by Ingres' "Oedipus
and the Sphinx," Delacroix's "Barq of Dante" Thorvaldsen's carvings
of Ganymede, Canova's "Perseus" and "Theseus and the Centaur,"
Rodin's "The Thinker" and "Age of Bronze," Goyas' "Colossus" and
"Saturn Devouring His Children," Gericault's "Raft of the Medusa" and
"Horses Stopped by Slaves," Renee Magritte's "The Ocean," and Egon
Schiele's many self-portraits. In their own exceedingly novel ways,
contributions to the representation of the male body were also granted
us by William Blake through the illustrations for his writings ("Glad
Day" especially), Thomas Eakins through his paintings of swimmers and
sportsmen, and last but not least Aubrey Beardsley through his
comically lascivious ink-art.
It mustn't be supposed that I'm in any way claiming the same, or
even similar, signification for all these instances of naked men in
Western art. Quite the contrary. Their meanings, aims, applications
and consequences have been, and continue to be, extraordinarily varied.
To all appearances, a greater diversity of female body-types, compared
to those of men, has been delivered in the visual culture of the West.
Be that as it may, female nudes have all but been incarcerated within a
cramped area of artistic indication. Their significance has been
resolutely limited by the range of signification allowed them. (See
above under "Powerless on a Pedestal".) In contrast, the Herculean
body-type for men has been authorized to express everything from the
horrendous to the magnificent. Just so, at different times the
Narcissusesque type has communicated grace or disfigurement,
earnestness or folly, energy or impotence, prestige or stigma, altruism
or malevolence, holiness or decadence, affluence or destitution, and so
on and so forth.
My own interest in the visual representation of male bodies primarily
has to do with its power to shape the subjectivities of flesh 'n'
blood men. As a critical framework, art history by itself is lacking
in its capacity to describe, disentangle, interpret and account for the
many layers of meaning which attach to varying occurrences of the male
nude. This is so because traditionally it relies overmuch on simple
iconographic observation and sylistic study. Though necessary, I am not
so much concerned with aesthetic determinations of quality,
inventiveness, and/or development, as I am with the complex relations
between cultural artifacts and the political construction, cultural
standardization, economic organization, psychosocial formations, and
ideological rationalizations of masculinity.
Only as a rule art history pays scant attention to, for instance, the
shift from aristocratic models of manhood substantiated in the artwork
of pre-Victorian times to the modern bourgeois ones evident thereafter.
Likewise, it pretty much ignores the ways in which depictions of male
nakedness reflect and multiply oppositional hierarchies within the
lived experience of actual human beings. Standard art history thereby
could contribute to the "naturalization" of patterns of
dominance-subordination. For example, it might serve to reinforce
pecking orders which secure the positions of adults over youngsters,
the middle-aged over the elderly, men over women, white collar workers
over blue collar, Caucasians over people of color, heterosexuals over
homosexuals, the fully able-bodied over the physically-restricted, the
fashionably attractive over those unconventional in appearance, etc.,
etc. Since a self-absorbed and disengaged approach to visual
representation cannot get at such issues, I unapologetically prefer a
more comprehensive and synchronic approach.
Thur
<bodyt...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1106751190....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Evidently KR assumes that the worthiness of any area of inquiry can be
I'm struggling with a couple of issues.
1) Why the gap between September 2004 and now?
Instead of resurrecting a thread from the past why not
start a new one? Some people have difficulty in finding
a thread that far back, and Googling it is the only way,
which is a pain.
2) You must try to get down what you need to say in
the first page (visible in browsers). Throwing a 17K
file at us is hardly going to get much readership without
serious editing. Further data may well be appropriate
but dont expect people to be as interested as you are.
3) because of 2), I do not know what the main
thrust of your post is. Are you trying to educate us, or
presenting the fact that male nudity in art is of a different
nature and level than female nudity?
Maybe there is a question or two in there that you want
feedback on?
Thur
keith o'connor
the sound of me being burned alive by gallons of highly concentrated
permutations and combinations of male intellectualism
--
take care: Keith
<bodyt...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1106750984.1...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
Electric Nachos
keith o'connor wrote in message <-7idnWJRbes...@rogers.com>...
keith o'connor
in caps. always happy when I can give the little people something to feel
superior about
--
take care: Keith
"Electric Nachos" <aint_...@chew.foo> wrote in message
news:10vgakk...@corp.supernews.com...
Electric Nachos
keith o'connor wrote in message ...
>- doesn't that make you feel good to be able to call someone 'dumb ass' and
>in caps.
Hm... let's see... "DUMB ASS!!"
Yup - feels good.
>always happy when I can give the little people something to feel
>superior about
>
Damn - There goes my commission for an obvious penis-enlarger sale!!
keith o'connor
analysts would have fun with that - you're just going to make everyone
happy -
--
take care: Keith
"Electric Nachos" <aint_...@chew.foo> wrote in message
news:10vgce7...@corp.supernews.com...
Electric Nachos
Electric Nachos
Electric Nachos
Electric Nachos
bodyt...@yahoo.com
Electric Nachos wrote:
> Sorry - Nudity in public art started waaaaaaaay before that!!!!!!
Agreed, EN. The key word in the text you cite is "our," meaning nudity
in the public art of Western civilization. Granted: it is probable
that some of the early Greeks were themselves inspired by the figures
created by the ancient Egyptians, and perhaps even by some of their
more distant neighbors in the Asian cultures. But following the Fall
of Rome, Occidental artists would wait until the 20th century to again
become interested in and animated by these sources. So, no apoloties
are necessary.
bodyt...@yahoo.com
as a way of locating this thread. If you're referring to Google groups
search engines, I wonder why you think them "a pain." Personally, both
the general one and the ones specific to the arts have proved most
useful for yours truly. Moreover,anyone who goes to the "front page"
for this group [ http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.arts.fine ]
will notice in the top-right column a listing of "Active Older Topics."
As I write this, this discussion is first on that list. Since the
contents of my recent postings result from thinking about what
previously had been said here, it seemed unnecessary and ill-advised to
initiate an entirely new discussion.
This particular discussion arose subsequent to my posting an invitation
to join Visualizing the Naked Man (VtNM) Association here. You will
notice that the invite merely outlined the nature and purposes of VtNM,
and provided links to our various sites. It was other participants who
drove it far afield and riddled it with personal attacks and fallacious
arguments.
I moderate discussions about this subject at two of VtNM's online
locations (Yahoo and MSN). Besides which, hopefully as with most
participants here, I have a day job, family, and interests and
obligations unconnected to the internet. So, Thur, I cannot speak for
others who quit posting last Sept, but as for me it's only lately that
I've had opportunity to reflect upon possible reasons why such rancor
and rudeness erupted so soon into this discussion.
I know nothing about the quarrelsome KR, other than what was put forth
in his postings. Hence, there's no way for me to ascertain if, to what
extent, or in what manner, KR might be similar to other possible
discussants of this subject. Still, he did step forth unbidden as
someone purportedly wanting to discuss "visualizing the naked man."
And he did come across as fairly articulate. So, at a minimum, he
conceivably could have put into words what others may feel, but never
voice, about some of the issues involved. There's also the chance that
he may have communicated ideas which others have expressed before or
elsewhere but with fewer people "listening in."
It is my hope that my recently-entered ruminations may shed some light
on how the depiction of men's bodies gets discussed (usually badly)
these days--leastwise on the internet, if not by way of other media as
well. Perhaps I also might impart some sense of how male nude imagery
COULD be talked about constructively, but apparently rarely is. Over
and above these aims, it would be gratifying if my reflections prompted
additional discussion here by people actually interested in, and at
least somewhat knowledgeable about, the topic identified by the title.
The reason my entries are packed with particulars as to titles of art
pieces and writings about them, as well as the names of thinkers and
researchers who've taken up the subject, is concern for the student(s)
keen on the subject who performs a search of Google art groups. Having
done exactly that before starting this thread, I'm aware of what slim
pickins such a search yields. If sometime in the future a young
scholar really wanting to read up on the male nude is directed to this
discussion, s/he will hopefully come away with plenty of leads. In
which case, all the energy I've put into providing information and
recommendations will be counted worthwhile.
Moreover, I make no apologies for expecting of myself and others
specific examples and explanations. Why not insist upon more than
groundless theorizing and one-liner flippancy? Art studies is already
dismissed by many learned people because of its enthrallment to
superficiality or abstruseness. Online discussions are for me not a
way to "pass the time." I want to learn. Inquiring into the meanings
which may attach to representations of the male body in Western visual
culture is an enterprise in its infancy. None of us are experts. But
it strikes me as unprofitable to allow free rein to people who don't
take the subject seriously in the first place? "Dont expect people to
be as interested as you are." And why not, Thur? If I'm to learn
anything, I want to hear from people who are at least as interested as
me, if not more so.
My recent entries were not intended to address KR's postings per se.
This is so (not the least) because he really sounds generally
uninformed and uninterested in the topic specified by the title of this
thread. Rather, his messages gave stimulus to my deliberations, which
specifically concern the visual representation of men's bodies.
Consequently, I consider my musings at once more focused and
farther-reaching than KR's own entries here.
Undoubtedly, there's no shortage of folks truly incurious about male
nude imagery. Hence, they pay it little head. And that's to be
expected. The same could be said, of course, for countless other
subjects of visual representation, in all its various froms. But if
someone is honestly indifferent to artwork of the male figure, why not
simply steer clear, or draw back the minute the subject comes up?
Amazingly, that is not what usually occurs. Instead, many resort to
the same stunt KR tried to pull. The attempt is made to usurp the
discussion by switching things onto a different track. And--surprise,
surprise--the supplanting topic is nearly always the same one: female
nude imagery. This happens time and time again.
Now, I'd be the first to acknowledge that insights about the depiction
of women's bodies may very well illuminate our understanding of male
nude imagery as well. But that's not how it works with these usurpers.
Typically, they allow not so much as a hint about the possible
relevance the former holds for the latter. KR certainly didn't. It's
rather like someone joining in a discussion about abstract art only to
yap on and on about naturalistic portrayals. Or the situation would be
analogous to a person attending a lecture billed as an exposition on
seascape paintings who only raises questions about mountainscapes.
It's not far from somebody responding to a presentation about
hearthside scenes solely with observations about marketplace scenes; or
to the subject of flower arrangements only with comments about
groupings of musical instruments.
It looks like your entry may simply be a reply to my challenging KR's
outlandish assumptions that "dominance" equals "majority," and that the
worthiness of any field of inquiry is measurable in terms of betting on
it. The illogic of such arguments would hold true no matter what the
subject. However, KR did elect to apply such sophistry to the subject
of male nude imagery. Hence, my response here.
As stated elsewhere in this thread, my own interest in the visual
representation of male bodies has primarily to do with its power to
shape the subjectivities of flesh 'n' blood men. Therefore, I'm most
attentive to the complex relations between artifacts depicting the male
nude and masculinity's political construction, cultural
standardization, economic organization, psychosocial formations and
ideological rationalizations. Since KR and the other participants
haven't offered a single suggestion about what possible significance
might pertain to either any grouping[s] or single example[s] of male
nude imagery, the surface has barely been scratched about any of these
matters. I'd be eager to discuss any aspect of the subject for which
this thread was explicitly established. Until now, however, others
seem determined to aim away from it.
Again, let me extend an invitation to anyone is seriously interested in
the subject to check out VtNM.
Headquarters on Yahoo:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/visualizingthenakedman
Headquarters on MSN Communities:
http://groups.msn.com/SpotlightingtheMaleNude
Annex to Headquarters for Historical Male Art:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vtnmhistoricalmalenudeart
Registration with Yahoo is required to join our sites hosted by it;
a .NETpassport is required to join our site on MSN Communities.
Such prerequisites are easily accomplished by clicking on any of the
above links.
Viewable at these locations are picture galleries of creations in
various media (paintings, photographs, graphic art, etc.) by
contemporary, Modernist and traditional artists, as well as chat,
links, document files, bulletin board postings, recommended reading
and viewing lists and (in the case of our site at MSN Communities)
on-going written discussions about various topics relating to the
depiction of unclothed men in popular culture (movies, porn,
advertising, etc.) and the fine arts.
There is also a jumpsite describing VtNM's purpose with links to the
various sites on AOL at
http://hometown.aol.com/heisnude/myhomepage/index.html
For VtNM Book Recommendations go to "Male Nudes Contemptuous of
Chic," "Movies Make the Man," and "Sripping Men in Visual Culture" at
http://hometown.aol/heisnude/myhomepage.books.html
Cheers,
Dan (BodyThinker)
.
bodyt...@yahoo.com
blind to displays of the male body. Likewise, it's doubtful that
someone generally informed about "current events" would be unaware
of debates surrounding such imagery. After all, men's bodies are
routinely stripped before the public eye by today's mass media. This
is particularly the case with respect to advertising, television and
motion pictures (theatrical releases as well as their DVD/video
offspring).
Probably more than any other medium, advertising bridges traditional
and contemporary male nude imagery due to its habit of "quoting" from
art history. This it does by inserting the likeness of unclad men from
well-known paintings/sculpture of the past, or designing layouts
unmistakably resembling the compositions of famous male nude artworks,
into commercials, magazine spreads, billboards, and suchlike. And
that's to say nothing of all those fine art photographers specializing
in the "classic" male nude look who hawk their wares on Madison Avenue.
In the field of journalism, an ever-widening seepage between the
tabloid and the mainstream has arisen. One of the more familiar
expressions of this trend is found in the purportedly candid shots of
naked male celebrities (leading actors, sports personalities, royal
personages, etc.) which turn up in supermarket rags and upscale
periodicals alike. A steady build-up of interest in the representation
of the male body is also occurring within the citadels of higher
education. Counted among the disciplines currently engaging the
subject would be literary criticism, the human sciences, aesthetics,
axiology, ethics, epistemology, semiotics, political philosophy,
filmology, cultural history, gender/men's/women's/gay/queer studies,
and, of course, art history.
Not infrequently, afternoon TV "talk shows" bring together trendy
academicians with "lifestyle" commentators for the purpose of
spotlighting the male body. Questions fielded by the "experts" range
from how to hire male strippers for bachelorette parties to where one
might find bared 'n' bulging "action figures" auctioned off on the
internet. In narrative programming, the exposed backsides of tough
cops and shrewd investigators have become something of a staple. Even
in situation-comedies of the past decade or so, male protagonists
appear on the set with more flesh uncovered than ever
before-loin-clothed in towels while coming from the shower, costumed
only in their birthday suits during bed scenes, cavorting about in the
briefest of telltale swim trunks or sportswear, etc. Ironically, the
convergence of feminist and "family values" activism has resulted in
far more scantly clad men than women on the boob tube.
Be it the current California Governor's time travel in the buff
during his Terminator days, or the violence visited upon the
stripped-down titans played by Sylvester Stallone, or the edgy
full-frontal informality of Kevin Bacon's characters, or the au naturel
New Man bodies layed out before us by the likes of Ewan McGreggor,
Robin Williams or Leonardo DiCaprio, the silver screen in our time is
awash in male nakedness. Perhaps second only to fine art photography,
no other medium goes after male flesh with the persistence and
resourcefulness of the movies. Within the boundaries of mass culture,
it is unrivaled. To a great degree, the naked men of today's cinema
serve purposes similar to those of the painted and sculpted versions of
the past. Often they are turned to in the interest of embodying civic
imperatives such as responsibility and loyalty, In addition, they may
be introduced as personifications of personal ideals such as integrity
and self-reliance.
Not long ago I had occasion to compare notes with a lesbian
intellectual as regards several of Jean Cocteau's more extravagant
sketchings of naked men. Among other things, she matter-of-factly drew
attention to the way in which Cocteau limns men's noses and nipples
with the same sleek, serpentine lines employed for their sexual organs.
Her on-the-button, no-nonsense approach was immensely refreshing, not
to mention instructive. Would that we could hear more often from other
learned gay women who are likewise observant of male nude imagery. If
anyone here fits that description, please pipe up. By the same token,
it seems to me one can practically take as a given that self-affirming
gay/bi men will ponder the germane issues more often, as well as enter
into dialogue about them more readily, and for reasons unrelated to
sexuality as such. In fact, over the years of studying the
representation of the male body, I've concluded that (at least these
days) most such men are rarely, if ever, sexually aroused by male nude
paintings, sculpture, prints, etc. It's just that, since there's no
dread of the mere possibility of libidinous stirrings, gay/bi guys can
be comparatively free in their notice and contemplation of pertinent
particulars.
Gay/bi men comfortable with their own sexual desires are in a better
position to "see" because they're not as likely to become anxious
about being seen seeing. This fact was brought home to me several
years ago while touring the Museuo Nazionale in Florence. I was in the
company of two women and three men--one of whom is openly gay. We'd
paused to appreciate a lovely marble carving by Sansovino (Jacopo
Titti) entitled "Bacchus." The size of this figure's penis caught my
eye. It was far more substantial than the diminutive standard set by
the "classical" ideal. Our conversation in front of the statue touched
on a number of topics: the expectant expression of the face, the
subtly complex but seemingly naturalistic gracefulness of the pose, the
sensuous surfaces of the polished Tuscan stone, the odd contours of the
wide wine cup, the buttress provided by a young satyr squatting at the
base, how this sculpture compared with others by Florentine masters,
etc. etc. Not a word was uttered about the design of the groin area
which, not so incidentally, was positioned near eye level.
The gals scooted off to browse a gift shop. After which I asked the
guys "did anything strike you as remarkable about the anatomy on that
Bacchus?" A momentary silence was broken by the gay man asking "Oh,
you mean his big dick?". His normal laid-back mien remained unchanged
as he spoke the words. But in a flash, my other companions were
stricken with a rather severe case of the fidgets. Eye contact was cut
off; a barely audible snort-titter escaped from one of them. Something
dawned on me at that moment. It's probably truer to say that non-gay
men are far more obsessed over not seeing male genitals (even
representationally) than it is to say that gays are with seeing them.
Of course, I'm not arguing that if or when a gay/bi man gets an erotic
charge out of looking at a nude male figure, he's thereby rendered
unfit to understand or appreciate its artistic properties or cultural
significance. Most of us take for granted that heterosexually-oriented
men aren't willy-nilly deprived of their faculties when gazing upon a
nude figure figure. Hard-ons and aesthetic sensitivity are not
mutually exclusive. So, let's not add to our already swollen cache of
heterosexist double standards.
Besides not needing to shrink from the mere chance of sexual arousal,
there seems to be another dynamic percolating among
homo/bisexually-adjusted men in this regard. You may have noticed, as
have I, how often copies of some "classics" of male nude imagery enter
into the decor of such men's homes. Molded bronze figurines and
hand-brushed reproductions of certain paintings often show up in living
rooms, dens, foyers, lounges, porches, and "rec rooms." For the less
affluent, offprints, posters and plaster/ceramic statuettes appear to
serve the same purpose. Now and then, there will also, or
alternatively, be original artworks in such men's living quarters.
These too often incorporate naked male body parts or whole forms.
Fortunately (for me), I've finally stopped asking these men if they
find such objects "sexy." Invariably their reaction was a quizzical
grimace, quickly followed by you've-got-to-be-kidding chuckling.
Listening to how gay/bi men converse about these items allowed me, in
the long run, to catch onto their customary uses. As a rule, they are
set forth to signify solidarity and pride in a group identity.
Moreover, the objects will sometimes indicate a sense of group history.
Replicas of Michelangelo's "David" and reproductions of Hippolyte
Flandrin's "Young Man by the Sea" look to me to be the first choices.
But others favored include the god/hero/warrior/athlete statuary of
ancient Greece, "The Dancing Faun" discovered at Pompeii, the so-called
"Barberini Faun," any one of countless Renaissance/Baroque paintings of
St. Sebastian, Annibale Carraci's "Apollo and Marsyas," Benvenuito
Cellini's statue of "Narcissus," Caravaggio's "Bacchus" or "Victorious
Amor," carvings of Ganymede by Bertel Thorvaldsen, or, from more recent
times, Thomas Eakin's "Swimming," Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations for
"Lysistrata," Duncan Grant's paintings of bathers and wrestlers, or any
of the drawings or oils by David Hockney featuring London/Los Angeles
lads. It might be useful to know if gay men's familiarity with such
works sharpens their appreciation of the larger role enacted by the
male figure in Western culture. It stands to reason that it could.
Thus far, however, I've not been able to find out one way or the other.
Moreover, unlike explorations into other areas of visual
representation--film and photography, as examples--to my knowledge, no
openly gay art scholar has zeroed in on questions concerning the male
nude. If anyone here knows of any, please post a message.
Leaving aside the small number of feminists who climbed into bed with
the Right during the 1980s porn debates, many heterosexually-oriented
participants of the women's movement also appear equal to the task of
talking about picturing male bodies. Like self-assured gay men, they
seem free from the evasiveness and superciliousness which infects many
discussions of the subject in mass media. The recent publication of
Germaine Greer's The Beautiful Boy is an excellent illustration of this
freedom. Greer's book joins a growing list of appreciable
contributions by feminist scholars to our knowledge of the depiction of
masculine embodiment. Besides Greer and Bordo work, that produced by
film critics Yvonne Tasker and Susan Jeffords, art specialists Margaret
Walters and Abigail Solomon-Godeau, theorists Jacquelyn Zita and
Suzanne Moore, fashion history expert Anne Hollander, and
photographer-teacher Melody Davis merit close study by anyone in
earnest about unraveling the complex questions. Oh, and we mustn't
forget Linda William's tour de force analysis of male bodies in
hardcore film "smut.".
KR rather glibly makes reference to patriarchy and homophobia. In the
same breath, s/he seemingly assumes that her/his own views about the
nude emerged ex nihilo-unaffected by such influences, unconditioned by
the history of the gender order, beyond the reach of the regulation of
power according to hierarchies of (among other things) sex and sexual
orientation. My impression is that it's the arty snobs who are
especially prone to cut-and-dried, a-historical assertions about things
artistic. You know the type: dilettantes clinging to the adornments
of high art in hopes of conferring upon themselves an air of
superiority. At one point, having rattled off a half-dozen titles of
now famous paintings of naked women, KR actually acknowledges that s/he
can call to mind only a few examples of naked men in Western art. This
is an astonishing admission. Not only does it betray a profound
ignorance of our cultural heritage, but additionally, and more to the
point, such sciolism unwittingly makes evident how complete has been
this individual indoctrination into patriarchal and heterosexist
orthodoxy. Where once certain breeds of the male nude in art stood for
the achievements and aspirations of society's big wigs, more recently
their female equivalents have been pushed to the forefront. KR knows
none of this. And the patricians of today's cosumerist
standardization wouldn't have it any other way. S/he does 'em
proud.
BUT, No Virginia, there really isn't self-evident art. It doesn't
drop from out of the sky all perfect and self-explanatory. Art is
neither self-caused nor autonomous. As with every human creation, it
always and everywhere is engendered and experienced amidst many-faceted
social traditions, political settings, cultural institutions and
economic systems. These are constituents of image-making, no less than
the intentions and skills of the image-maker, or the materials turned
to in the processes of producing imagery. They may be (and, to my
mind, ought to be) studied analytically, scientifically, and
historically. That it might be so seems to alarm KR. How else to
account for her/his frenzied sputtering about "postmodernism"? The
appellation "pomo bullshit" is laughable. On KR's own terms, it
obvious s/he here is speaking tautologically. Come what may,
everything "pomo" is already bullshit from the get-go, if we're
to believe KR. As far as I can tell, what most disturbs KR about
postmodernism is that it should even attempt to trespass upon simple
objectivity, undertake to penetrate the prima facie.
Perhaps I should confess that only in relation to literature and
architecture does "postmodernist" make definite sense to me. Its
application to other fields seems fraught with such diverse-even
contrary-meanings that its usefulness strikes me as uncertain. When
art historians, cultural critics, and other thinkers employ the term
within specific frames of reference and with concrete examples, it
referent(s) may be rendered intelligible. But, as with so many
"post-" locutions, context is decisive. For KR, however, all this
is really beside the point. S/he hurls the term simply as a
malediction. To dare scrutinize the conventional wisdom about an
artistic subject is damnable in itself. (In one of her/his
self-contradictory moves, KR objects to my explaining the dominance of
the male nude in art as having to do with its "significance." Oh,
but isn't significance just a matter of personal impression,
individual taste, s/he asks. Fittingly or not, such radical
subjectivism is precisely one of the main criticisms leveled against
Post-Modernism by its detractors.)
bodyt...@yahoo.com
accustomed to seeing the male nude, just how "public" are we
talking here? To give some sense of the answer to that question,
suffice it to cite a small sampling of countless possible instances.
Let's begin with the august and holy Hildegard of Bingen. She
illustrated her writings on medicine, religion, and stagecraft with a
frontpiece featuring a shamelessly naked man as the Micro-Cosmos. The
manuscripts were displayed during her day at the Benedictine nunnery
for which she served as Mother Superior. The Bingen abbey was a
favorite destination for Medieval pilgrims. Less than a century later,
Nicola Pisano would be paid handsomely to carve a fully-frontal and
quite well-endowed "Fortitude" into the pulpit of the Pisa
Baptistry.
Then there's the case of an anonymous German sculptor of the early
16th century who designed a crucifix with articulated limbs. Thus was
the denuded Christ able to enter into liturgical dramas in the form of
a giant marionette . In Spain from the 14th through the 17th centuries,
polychromed wood carvings of the executed or exalted Christ were common
in its many places of worship. Shaped and colored to incarnate a
fleshy naturalness, these figures usually were rendered in a state of
undress. In that way, sanctuary attendants could change Jesus'
lavish loin cloths to fit the seasons of the Church calendar. This one
skimpy but richly embroidered article of clothing was all the Savior
required. Perhaps more than in any other part of Christendom, the
nakedness of Jesus was presented in Spain as proof of his dual
human-divine nature.
One would have to be blind to miss all the disrobing of Biblical
champions, male mystics, and pagan idols which went on during the
Renaissance. What could be more indicative of the spirit of that age
than the rivalry between Prince and Church over who would get credit
for setting before the citizens of Florence Michelangelo's supremely
nude "David"? During the latter part of this period, imagery which
glorified the Flagellation of Christ and the Casting Down of the Damned
on Judgment Day emerged as all the rage. One or the other theme showed
up on church doors, in frescoes, and/or as devotional or sacramental
objects. Quite possibly the trend toward decoratively twisting and
exaggerating the proportions of the male body helps explain the
fashionableness for these motifs at the time. Men's bodies are so
elaborately and gracefully contorted that it's easy to forget the
extreme violence being pictured.
Cathedrals, oratories, basilicas, shrines, theological schools, and
monasteries of the Baroque era were likewise crammed with the immodest
hosts of heaven. Male martyrs and seraphim stood casually naked along
side fully dressed female saints (the one possible exception being Mary
Magdalene, whose presumed nakedness could be covered by her own long
tresses). Incidentally, it may be noteworthy that Manet would achieve
great success (read "hoped-for scandal") with his "Le Dejeuner
sur L'herbe" by reversing this centuries-old artistic convention of
intermingling clothed women with classically-coded nude men. Dr. Ruth
Westheimer, the noted psychosexual authority, in commenting on
Manet's 1863 female nude entitled "Olympia," echoes the same
point being insisted upon here. She says "[His] celebrated painting
is different from all its nude forebears in that it was painted to make
a sensation at the Paris Salon rather than for the personal delectation
of a private patron" (emphasis added).
Coming at the question "how public?" from another angle, it may be
useful to recall the casting of George Washington in the role of Zeus
by Horatio Greenough for his American History Museum monument. The
first U.S. President takes on the attitude and pose of an Olympian,
naked but for a draping suggestive of Pheidias's sculpture in ancient
Greece. Around the same time, Francois Rude uncovered not only the
dignity and valor, but also the bodies, of Parisian heroes by chiseling
them into the Arc de Triomphe. In the meantime, minor league sculptors
had been planting landmarks which incorporated male nudes here, there,
and everyone. The more dubious the distinction of the big-shot to whom
the shrine was dedicated, the more majestic the unveiling of male
flesh. One thinks, for example, of Westmacott's imperiously naked
"Achilles," set up as a monument to the Duke of Wellington "for
the ladies of England."
To this day pedestrians and motorists in London's Piccadily Circus
can be shot with "missiles of kindness," thanks to Alfred
Gilbert's "Memorial to the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury." This
consists of a life-size winged nude archer, said to symbolize Christian
charity or agape. The male nude "Genius of Liberty" by A.-A. Dumont
flutters on undersized wings above central Paris. It tops off the
column in the Place de la Bastille. An unappareled Beethoven provided
the focal point for Max Klinger's "Gesamtkunstwerk" at the
much-attended 14th Exhibition of the Vienna Secession. (Recall that
Bronzio, centuries before, had been commissioned to paint at least two
portraits of noblemen in the nude. In one the Grand Duke Francesco
doffs all his clothes to declare a supposedly Orphic nature. In
another an aging Andrea Doria coyly drops the drapery to just below the
pubes in impersonation of an emphatically phallic Neptune.) For
economy's sake, let's assign Pierre-Paul Prud'hon's "Justice
and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime" the task of standing for the
overabundance of artworks, by lesser artists than he, which
allegorically marshaled male nudes ostensibly to teach civic lessons?
In their efforts to rally the masses, the secular religions of the
modern world-be it Nationalism or Capitalism, Fascism or
Communism--have deployed the male nude no less than Kings and Popes of
bygone days. In the post-war 1920s, for instance, directors of the
Napolas (State-run schools dedicated to training fighting elites)
contracted with many an artist to decorate the grounds and interiors
with male nude figures. These portrayed dreamily romantic outlooks in
determinedly vigorous bodies. A memorial to the war dead of the
Machine Gun Corps at Hyde Park Corner perhaps epitomizes the
sentimental style much favored at the time. This style often played up
the voluptuous vulnerability of naked adolescent corporeality. The
Third Reich enlisted sculptors such as Arno Becker, and painters such
as Walther Hoeck, to encase Nazi dogmas in a virile mascularity without
a stitch on. Joseph Thorak made a career of crafting Herculean and
square-jawed nudes willing to suffer for the Fatherland, such as his
"Monument to the Freedom of Danzing."
To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the March on Rome, Mussolini
ordered the construction of a grandiose complex of sports stadiums.
Colossal statues of naked athletes encircle these arenas. Where the
art of German and Italian Fascism made bold in its presentation of the
penis, the Stalinist regime preferred circumspection. Gaudily tinted
and ubiquitously displayed posters lauding The Party often starred
stripped-down versions of "The Working Man," but invariably with
unobtrusive genitalia. The sacred cows of the private enterprise
system are invoked and adored via the near-hysterical exertion and
exorbitant brawn of the nude "Atlas" outside Rockefeller Center.
Andy Warhol, among others, would often comment ironically in his work
on consumer society's infatuation with gym-built male physiques.
And let's remember that the Neoclassical Movement eventuated in the
government buildings and royal residences of Russia being decked out
with of limp and ethereal males, nearly all of whom were elegantly
undressed. Similar striplings were to expose themselves by means of
another medium during the early years of the last century. Southern
Italy was at that time often visited by sightseers from the bourgeoisie
of European nations and their protectorates. As reminders of their
holidays there, photographs by Baron von Gloeden, Guglielmo Pluschow,
Vincenzo Galdi and others were brought back. These pictures mostly
celebrated the tawny and youthful flesh of "exotic" fig-leafless
fellows indigenous to the area. Typically, they'd be posed in
outdoor or pseudo-antique settings and bedecked with flowers.