Monday, November 19, 2007

Contemporary Alternative Gay Male Art Versus Traditional Gay Male Art about Male Anatomy

I've spent hours researching this topic though I originally intended to put but a few hours into the entire project. Today I wrote my thesis sentences - two, not one - and began a list of gay male artists throughout history.

Thesis Statement

Traditional gay male art is all about the magnificent male physique. The appearance of a contemporary alternative to that art in New York and other major art centers is about gay vision and its relationship to gay male sexuality.



List of Artists – not yet categorized by type; 1) About the Ideal Male Body, 2) Alternative to Category One

1. Michelangelo
2. Leonardo Da Vinci
3. Beauford Delaney
4. Paul Cadmus
5. Andy Warhol
6. George Platt Lynes
7. David Hockney
8. Robert Mapplethorpe
9. Pierre et Gilles
10. Tom of Finland
11. Keith Haring
12. Don Bachardy
13. F. Holland Day
14. Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden
15. Henry Scott Tuke
16. Caravaggio
17. Charles Demuth
18. David Wajnarowicz
19. Marsden Hartley

Of course the list is totally inadequate, though I don't intend to include every gay male artist of the past 500 years - that is an entirely different task.

I will do more with this topic at a future date.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hiya

I really like your pictures.

I also use pastels (and charcoal) as my main painting medium, but my work is totally differant to yours, you can check them out on-
www.trevor-wood.co.uk

I would appreciate your comments.

Anonymous A said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous A said...

Dear Trevor,

I found your comment on my Website this morning, and I am so pleased that you wrote to me. I went to your Website, and discovered that you are an extremely impressive individual – MBE & FRSA – not withstanding your talent and art production!

I looked at the pastels first, and enjoyed the clarity of technique, and the approach to your subject, seemingly uncomplicated on first glance, not so as one inspects closely. The references in technique to the Fauves and Expressionism create an ironic twist for me. I cannot help but think of Rouault’s compassion for his subjects, caught as they are in the compression of temporal culture. I especially enjoyed the three pastels with the blue man and black cat. I plan to do a bit of introspection about the symbolism involved, that is blue man, black cat, stone wall, reversal of color, top to bottom, and get back to you. The obvious use of opposites, top and bottom, isn’t difficult whether intended or not, but I need to think about the rest.

I hope to hear from you.

Sincerely,

John

Dr. John Bittinger Klomp

Anonymous said...

Greetings John,

Excellent distinction between the past and the future. I wonder if you have seen this bit of traditional gay male art, well enough hidden to foil those who destroyed so much of Leonardo's work:

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=display&webtag=ab-altreligion&tid=3039

It's called: "Do You See Leonardo's Hidden Penis?" I'm surprised it's not world news...but perhaps the world is not quite ready to mix sexuality and faith.

Anonymous A said...

Hi Alex,

I'm stunned! Such obvious visual evidence should be resonating with art historians worldwide.

Anonymous said...

John, here's an even more stunning treatment of this remarkable piece of news. How can we get the world to see the real Leonardo?

http://divertimentodavinci.blogspot.com/

Unknown said...

i reeally like what you are looking at. i think that loking at bacon would be a good idea, not for his aesthetic but there is alot of theory comming to fruition about the homosexual relationship to the physical form in his work... giacometti too, in fact they shared a brief romance